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Serving the Dart Frog Community Since 2004...
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Serving the Dart Frog Community Since 2004...

Bloodlines, morphs, Brighter color issues...
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Bloodlines, morphs, Brighter color issues...
#1
This is a subject that has come up but is apparently not well understood.

I have posted (advertising) that I have "the most diverse colors/patterns " from my intermedius. Not sure if it because I feed a bit differently, because my frogroom and entire house is 100% climate controlled and never reaches temps higher than 75 or lower than 65, because I prophylactically treat my whole collection for nematodes, because I have held back more breeders than the "normal" frog breeder, because I employ an ozone generator, or am I just blessed. What I do know is that there are only a small certain number of true bloodlines in the U.S. , Europe, or any other Dart collecting area of the world , excepting South and Central America. There are in fact "bloodlines" of Standard lamasi in the U.S. that may very well (I am fairly sure) be from the same German supplier and breeding group, therefore making them the same bloodline.

Bloodlines are site specific lines which can be absolutely traced back to site of collection. Bloodlines are not "Rich Frye" intermedius or terribilis, they are not "Patrick" imitators or "Black Jungle" leucs. MANY froggers would be very surprised to know the limited extent of true bloodlines in the States.

To over simplify separate "morphs". They should be treated as separate species. At least until more genetic info can be digested. A Basti separate from a BriBri, from a Darklands, ect. There are/can be different lines of the same morph, but not different morphs from the same line.

There are a few ways to have offspring or an offspring which looks different that others from its line:

1. Color enhancing foods/additives are one way, although I see very little "bang for the buck" as all of the Darts I have worked with seem to be PLENTY colorful as they are.

2. Random chance/genetics. No need for a long winded explanation. Key word "random".

3. Husbandry involving temps, foods not meant for color enhancing , water changes ect. Much of this is still in speculative stages and there are WAY more questions unanswered than answered.

4. THE biggie. Selective breeding. In my opinion, if you are holding back the bluest imitators, the most orange giant oranges, the finest spotted intermedius , or whatever , you are doing a disservice to the hobby. The next step is designer Darts and we don't need that, period. The bluest, most banded, finest spotted , whatever are not going to gravitate to each other in the wild so there is no benefit to selectively forcing them to produce anything at any extreme end of the scale.
If you see pictures of a group of adult albino Darts being kept together, they are being selectively breed, or selectively fought as same sexes would tend to fight, sooner or later. There are few and far between groups of albino darts living together in the wild.

I can see nothing wrong with throwing an albino in with a "normal" group of Darts , just as I can see no problem with throwing an imitator that just happens to have an extraordinary amount of blue on its legs (especially within the same line) in with a group with a "normal" amount of blue. This would happen in nature.

I have a large number of breeding intermedius. They are ALL from the same line. They produce a wide variety of colors and patterns. I do not selectively breed. My intermedius seem to throw quite a varied selection of offspring. Diversity is on the opposite end of selectivity. Nothing more involved than that.

Anyone claiming to have the reddest, bluest, fattest, longest, shortest, loudest ,whatever, either has imported or smuggled in his/her/their own line, or is selectively breeding.

Rich
Darts with parasites are analogous to mixed tanks, there are no known benefits to the frogs with either.


If tone is more important to you than content, you are at the wrong place.

My new email address is: rich.frye@icloud.com and new phone number is 773 577 3476
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#2
This is a topic that I have never really understood and always wondered how someone can say "my bloodline" without knowing the exact local of the original frogs.
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#3
They can't Paul.

Rich
Darts with parasites are analogous to mixed tanks, there are no known benefits to the frogs with either.


If tone is more important to you than content, you are at the wrong place.

My new email address is: rich.frye@icloud.com and new phone number is 773 577 3476
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#4
Thanks Rich,

I thought as much because obviously not knowing the excact locale the frog was collected from means Jim down the street could have the same frog from the same local.
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#5
Yup, and what's worse, Jim may have what he thinks are two frogs that are the same morph, but may not be.
Best we can do is ask as many questions and go back as far as we can. Keep track of records.

Rich
Darts with parasites are analogous to mixed tanks, there are no known benefits to the frogs with either.


If tone is more important to you than content, you are at the wrong place.

My new email address is: rich.frye@icloud.com and new phone number is 773 577 3476
Reply
#6
Poor Jim :wink:

so in a perfect world when frogs are imported the frogs would be kept in local/morph specific groups/ containers from the point of collection. from there to the exporter then the importer and then to the hobbyist who keeps good records. it's a shame that not every one keeps these records well. and even worse get 2 frogs from differant locals which could possibly be differant morphs and call them Jim smith line.

slowly but surely I am getting this thanks for the great post Rich.
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#7
While the plural of anecdote is not data...

When Kevin & Brian Hoff went to Panama, while they were in Darklands, they observed (very limited sample, yes), that female Darklands pumilio did in fact seem to select for color in their mates. The redder males did not seem to attract any attention from the females, while the blue males did.
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#8
Hi Catfur.
Just curious as to how long you would need to sit and record mate selection to get some hard data. I would guess quite a bit of time and sample numbers.

Wonder how those redder males keep popping up if the females find em' so ugly ?
If different morphs and species can interbreed with relative ease, I find it very hard to believe pumilio will run away from a male with slightly less or more of one color or another, as I have not found this to be true with any other morph or species ,as a hard set rule, or in general.

Many of these frogs are in fact too easy to breed. Do I have a male? Yup. Do I have a female? Yup. How long before I get eggs from what I believe to be the same species.....maybe?


Rich
Darts with parasites are analogous to mixed tanks, there are no known benefits to the frogs with either.


If tone is more important to you than content, you are at the wrong place.

My new email address is: rich.frye@icloud.com and new phone number is 773 577 3476
Reply
#9
Just to shed some light on this. Over 2 years ago I did a trade with Patrick for some "orange" bicolors. He told me that he wasn't sure what color they would turn out to be as adults but the breeding stock he had were as orange as say terrbilis. Well, after having my trio since they were froglets here is what they look like now:

Male- orange back,yellow sides,black belly,black and greenish legs

Female#1-peach colored back ,yellow sides and dirty yellow belly,green legs

Female#2-yellow back,yellow sides,and dirty yellow belly.greenish legs

Not wanting to start bashing people but others I have talked to that own bicolors have said and I agree is there is just color variances in them not different morphs.
Mark W.
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#10
Hey Mark,
I don't think you are bashing anyone. But I also don't really get the point .
I know of nobody selling different morphs of bicolors. Sean S. has a line of what is most likely bicolors that he has done genetic testing on to conclude a 5% divergence from terribilis, they are not terribilis. Possibly a "new" morph of bicolor, not sure myself.

Rich
Darts with parasites are analogous to mixed tanks, there are no known benefits to the frogs with either.


If tone is more important to you than content, you are at the wrong place.

My new email address is: rich.frye@icloud.com and new phone number is 773 577 3476
Reply
#11
I can say that there is a very definite difference between yellow terribilis and Orange terribilis. I hope to prove this sometime in the near future with some genetic testing (along with my regina "twins") with some help from MSU.

Rich
Darts with parasites are analogous to mixed tanks, there are no known benefits to the frogs with either.


If tone is more important to you than content, you are at the wrong place.

My new email address is: rich.frye@icloud.com and new phone number is 773 577 3476
Reply
#12
Rich, back to your main point, it would be great to know the origin of different morphs and locales. Ideally, I would refer to my terriblis, or leucs etc, as their point of origin, import date or importer, or ideally specific locale. I would like to see the hobby take this issue more seriously because it will become increasingly important as more and more of these frogs natural habitats become destroyed, decreased, or the populations become infected with things like chytrid.
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#13
Bumping this for you Craig....your'e the last post ^
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