Dart Frogs

[proud2bcanadian]

I am wondering where you purchase your Dart Frogs. Dendrobates azureus are the ones I am looking for.

Thank you,

[Matt_K]

http://www.understoryenterprises.com/

No need to look any further.. Mark has AMAZING frogs and everything you will need for them!!

[proud2bcanadian]

Matt_K - Thanks for the link.

Would anyone happen to know if you can mix Dendrobates azureus with Dendrobates auratus and/or Dendrobates leucomelas??

If it is possible I was thinking of having two of each?!

Thank you,

[kidchameleon]

i THINK you can, but dont take my word on it.
anyway, are there any reptile shows near you? cause i know that shows by me usually have a lot of them for reasonble prices

[proud2bcanadian]

Yeah, I live in Mississauga, so I always attend the Toronto Reptile Expo. I am just looking for a gift right now for my sister. Their vivarium is setup, and all they need are frogs, lol.

[Brock]

Mixing is possible with no side effects OTHER THAN interspecies breeding. And the dart frog community has a very honorable code where they try let the frogs remain a pure species without mixing. Of course some have taken the liberty to breed different species, but if you want to honor the hobby and forefathers/experienced keepers in the hobby you will keep different species of the same genus in different tanks. You'll want to bring this up with Mark Pepper (owner of understoryenterprises.com) I'm sure he can give you his 2.5 cents on it since he's the dart frog king of Canada.

[proud2bcanadian]

Thank's Brock. I will email him right away.

[Jeff_Favelle]

azureus and tinctorius have been mixed, but trust me, why would you even WANT to mix a wicked BLUE Dart frog? The babies won't be worth 1/3 what an azureus would be.

[DragnDrop]

I always refer people to Mark (a.k.a Mr. Dart Frog Canada :) )

He's got all the species/moprhs you asked about, and I know for a fact that they'll be perfectly healthy frogs if you get them from him.

As for mixing - Dendrobates anything will interbreed. Auratus don't care if they mate with an azureus or tinctorius, they're all 'Dendrobates' and that's good enough for the frogs. Even with a suitable mate of their own kind, they'll cross the line and breed with anyone willing to share the honeymoon hut with them.
As has been mentioned, the dart frog hobby is really careful about mixing species and morphs. A lot of the dart frogs are on the verge of extinction, that's why they're on the CITES II appendix. To preserve them for the future, we should keep them pure. Even with the most careful selective breeding, you'll never ever be able to guarantee that a former 'hybrid' line has been cleaned up and is now once again a pure line. Once crossed, that's it, the genes are messed and meere humans can't do much with our current knowledge to get it all back to the way it should be.

Some people don't care about mixed species, some do it for the prestige of being the first on the block to have a new morph, some do it to see what they'll get, some for the money selling a new something they can charge a fortune for. But in the end, it means one less clutch to help keep the pure darts alive, one more screwed up bloodline. The first generation usually looks great. The second generation onwards, you have a chance of getting 'ugly' or deformed frogs, the result of remixing the genes - a tinc jaw on a leuc head as an example. Sometimes the body parts are just different enough that in the 2nd generation they don't mesh quite right. Quite often colours come out muddied too, no more cool mixes, just a mess. I've seen pictures of 2nd and 3rd generation frogs that were so malformed because they 'inherited' the body parts from grandparents but they didn't match in size or shape. There's a discussion of it in the frognet archives, but it would take some digging to find it, it's probably from 3 or 4 years ago.

[proud2bcanadian]

DragnDrop - Thank you so much for posting that. I think that I will stick with just the Dendrobates azureus. lol

[Double J]

Well said Hilde.