'Paru' Oophaga sylvatica - PICS !

[Jeremy Huff]

[quote="RichFrye"]
Sometime next week I can once again break down the facts as presented, both here and on websites.

AHHH, not fair! We have to wait until NEXT WEEK to hear more "WISDOM" from the great and powerful Oz, I mean Frye??? What will I do all weekend? Don't put yourself out too much Rich, as I doubt many of us care for your 'breaking it down for us' posts and higher than mighty attitude.

[RichFrye]

If you don't care , why post here?
Missed your chance to pick my brain in person. Thought you guys were coming to Frog Day??

[RichFrye]

Just for you Jeremy, as my trip out of town has been delayed a few hours.
Any questions , feel free to ask and I'll walk you through it , again, again...

1. It's been stated , by Mark, that the frogs have been picked out of the wild and relocated into pens. The collection area is huge.

2. It's been stated that Mark does not know exactly what the selection process was, or how the people picking the frogs out of the natural area they breed in chose what to pick out and how to sepparate them into multiple pens. But we know that they were collected and divided.

3. There are no truly polymorphic populations of dart frogs that anybody has mentioned yet. The definition of polymorphic has been covered in this thread.

4. If there is any doubt about how to breed frogs which are pheno-typically all over the spectrum DON'T MIX THEM.

5.THERE IS DOUBT ABOUT HOW TO BREED THEM.

[RichFrye]

... higher than mighty attitude.

Now, I have one question for you.
What the heck is "higher than mighty"?

[RichFrye]

I should also add that if these frogs are properly managed, the price of $500 is an absolute steal. No two ways about it. A steal.

[RichFrye]

Also, one of the reasons I was going to wait until next week to make my points once again was the fact that I have pictures of these frogs which show no less than eight absolutely different phenotypes, but it'll take some time to dig out the pics.

Not that some care, it's more important to point out dislike for me, but that's one reason for a delay in posting all the facts involved.

You don't get to fence sit when managing darts. You either mix or breed like to like. Not both.

[RichFrye]

Thoughts?

[RichFrye]

How about we start by not even looking at the bodies, let's comment on the feet...

[RichFrye]

No attempted quips or funny movies or pictures? Come on guys, I do what I do. Do what YOU do.

[RichFrye]

Now, the next logical step to proving these are all one contiguous BREEDING population would be to arrange the pictured frogs into some sort of gradient representation. Because it's obvious that genetic drift has not settled the 'population' into a mean, this should be easily done. No?

[RichFrye]

There it is. Good boy. And I thought I may have to threaten to take away your tire swing.
Care to post something about the darts we are discussing?

[Philsuma]

I should also add that if these frogs are properly managed, the price of $500 is an absolute steal. No two ways about it. A steal.

Rich, you are meaning - AFTER they come into the U.S hobbyists hands....THEN the proper management occurs, right ?

[RichFrye]

I should also add that if these frogs are properly managed, the price of $500 is an absolute steal. No two ways about it. A steal.

Rich, you are meaning - AFTER they come into the U.S hobbyists hands....THEN the proper management occurs, right ?

Ideally we will get more info pertaining to the areas all these different phenotypes were collected. Hopefully we'll get an idea of what mountains, streams/rivers, man made barriers, etc. are diving these frogs, because they are not one contiguous breeding population.
But, for the time being , in my mind, proper management with the info we NOW have is to breed like to like.

Anybody still thinking of saying all those frogs picture will be found in one locale?

[RichFrye]

not really. But if you feel I'm personally neglecting you today just pm me and we can talk. Just the two of us

Actually , I'm just waiting for a buddy to get done racing for the day, then we are delivering his boat across Lake Michigan. Part of my non-life.
So, you'll have to be content with talking politics on a frog forum, in a hidden 'special' spot, without me. Have fun.

[manuran]

Now, the next logical step to proving these are all one contiguous BREEDING population would be to arrange the pictured frogs into some sort of gradient representation. Because it's obvious that genetic drift has not settled the 'population' into a mean, this should be easily done. No?

Hi Rich,
I get it that this is an odd population, but could I respectfully suggest that not all the patterns that this population exhibits have been represented in those 9 photos. Or maybe even in the limited number of frogs that came in. To make a good assessment of the population wouldn't one need to see a much larger sample.

Also, 4 posts earlier (sorry not computer savy enough to quote 2 postings! haha) you wrote what Mark has stated about this. I interpreted what he has said a little differently than you have.
I read this posting by Luis Coloma on Understory's facebook page, and it seems like it would be very helpful in clarifying things here. I'm sure Mark's understanding of the situation is a combination of talking to Luis and other Ecuadorian biologists and visiting the site as well.
http://www.facebook.com/UnderstoryEnter ... 1073324865

Anyway, I hope that through captive breeding of these animals and the further fieldwork mentioned in Coloma's post, maybe a clearer picture arises. It is a perplexing population to many people. Who knows maybe the captive breeding that occurs in the hobby can assist to answer some of these larger questions. In the meantime, I hope that posting helps.

[thedude]

Where did Mark say they were picked out and placed in pens? And how are you not getting that they are breeding all together in the wild? And those pictures do show a gradient...I have no idea how that was supposed to support your "facts"

Lets see here, the opinion of someone without a scientific background who has used several terms wrong, or the expertise of several herpetologists that have been working in the Ecuadorian Choco for years and directly studying this population. DECISIONS DECISIONS.

To everyone reading, this is an amazing frog with an amazing background. I'm astonished that our hobby is now getting site specific sustainably harvested sylvatica. Don't let someone ruin it because of his "facts" that have no evidence to support them.

[Philsuma]

We are definitely headed forward - in the right directed, with work like this.

[Sports_Doc]

^ perhaps you could pull together the 13 posts from RF above into one?? So we can more easily follow his logic? lol

^ Its hard to moderate isnt it Phil? but I have the right idea!

[markpulawski]

Rich you would be well served to read what Luis Coloma wrote about this population. You now state that putting different frogs of this population together is mixing....would I say that what Understory imported is one locale, absolutely. To have a scientist say these frogs show amazing variability within their range, nothing like the uniformly similar frogs of other nearby populations would in my mind put them in a new category...much like Imitator/Intermedius they can produce offspring that look nothing like themselves.

[SmackoftheGods]

Rich, I ought to start by saying that you've provided a pretty small sample size from which to choose. With frogs that different it can be hard to see all the intermediary phenotypes that are out there to show how they transition from one frog to the other. I cannot deny that the frog in the second picture you posted looks remarkably different from the frog in the eighth picture. However, even in the small sample I see a gradient when the pictures are arranged differently than the way you have them.



















I don't know about anyone else, but I can definitely see a gradient in these frogs. Now, you can be super particular about these frogs. You can focus on only the feet, and you'll find differences in color and maybe some in size. But I've seen my share of blue jeans with different colors and sizes of feet. I don't really think you can single out one particular feature and claim that they're polymorphic strictly on that basis. When looking at the frogs as a whole I see a gradient - even with this imperfect sample size.

3. There are no truly polymorphic populations of dart frogs that anybody has mentioned yet. The definition of polymorphic has been covered in this thread.

I fail to see why this matters. Just because there are no other dart frog populations that are "truly polymorphic" doesn't mean that this one isn't.

It's been stated , by Mark, that the frogs have been picked out of the wild and relocated into pens. The collection area is huge.

Is that what you got from what Mark said?

Nobody, as in no human decided that these frogs go together in this group or that. Millions of years of evolution and pressures of one form or another resulted in a unique population of frogs populating the Chocoan forests where the Otokiki reserve owned and managed by WIKIRI is situated. There are no breeding groups in the traditional sense rather managed plots of about 1 hectare where many bromeliads and artificial sites are added, and frogs are then left to breed in situ. The plots are carefully monitored by WIKIRI biologists and metamorphs are collected and reared further in Quito prior to export. This is frog ranching in situ.

What we know now is what the frogs at Otokiki look like today. They are all there together in the same patch of forest, breeding, thriving.

It looks to me like Mark is saying that the frogs decided themselves to breed together, were deposited into bromeliads and artifical depositions sites, and the metamorphs were collected. He also said that the site that they are collected from is one hectare. Someone correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe that a hectare is 100 meters by 100 meters, one approximately one football field by one football field. It sounds big, but when it comes to Dendrobatid breeding populations, it sounds like a remarkably small plot of land. He also said that the all the frogs represented in the hobby are an accurate representation of what is in the hobby.

Furthermore, in regards to the human intervention you keep bringing up,

"Populations" are now restricted/isolated largely due to generations of habitat destruction and resource extraction.

It looks to me like Mark is suggesting that the human interference is actually creating barriers to cut off other populations, not that humans are causing the mixing of these two sylvatica locales.

4. If there is any doubt about how to breed frogs which are pheno-typically all over the spectrum DON'T MIX THEM.

There's doubt in your mind. Not in mine.