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1½ year ago I started keeping Ceratophrys frogs again after a pause of some years where I focused mainly on invertebrates. Now I only keep frogs (Ceratophrys and Xenopus). I am interested in husbandry, captive breeding and genetics of these frogs.

For some time I have been reading this forum and it seems that there are some very knowledgeable people posting here, so I hope someone can make the following matters more clear to me.

Firstly, the hybrids between different Ceratophrys species, are they fertile? If they are, what crosses will result in viable offspring?

For example:

Backcrossing to either one of the parent species?
(ornata-x-cranwelli X pure ornata (or pure cranwelli))

Mating two hybrids of the same kind?
(ornata-x-cranwelli X ornata-x-cranwelli)

Mating two dissimilar hybrids?
(ornata-x-cranwelli X cornuta-x-cranwelli)

Second, I have the possibility to buy what is stated to be color variants of C. cranwelli: “Lime green”, “Peppermint”, and “Apricot”. “Peppermint” is the only one I have seen pictures of. That is on a Japanese website, where it is labelled as a hybrid (of untold composition). Are these forms hybrids or are they color variants of pure C. cranwelli? If they are hybrids, what are they hybrids of?

If anyone has pictures or descriptions of “Lime green” and/or “Apricot”, please share!

I post these questions because I am considering buying some of the (rather expensive) color variants. However, they are of little interest to me if they are infertile hybrids.

Kind regards,
Nicholas Ditzel

What is the website that you saw these on?

ditzel
I would think that the sucess of your breeding efforts would depend upon which phenotypes are dominant in which hybrids. In order to find this out you would probably need to play around with breeding them and experiment for yourself as to which traits appear in which crosses (perhaps in the less expensive morphs). This, of course, all depends on whether or not the hybrids are fertile or not. I would venture to guess that some of the hybrids would be fertile while some would not be, this seems to be the way that crosses, and hybrids, work out. As for investing in expensive morphs, just be careful that what you are investing in is an actual morph, not just an anomile, which would greatly reduce your chance for sucess as the trait would likely be much rarer and more difficult to produce (meaning that you would have to have just the right genetic combination in the frog you bred it with to get the morph again). I could not answer for you whether these are hybrids, or just color morphs within a single species. I would imagine that, if they are indeed hybrids, there is an Amazonian horned frog's genetics involved for the lime green effect, though I'm only guessing. You would really need to contact the breeder of the frog to establish this. I hope this helps you, I'm no expert at all when it comes to breeding color morphs as I don't breed them myself, I just have a little bit of a passion for biology. Hopefully I didn't lead you astray. Let me know if this helped.

Regards, EMWhite

tortorama:
The website is this:
http://www.wildsky.net/frogs/eeespecies.htm
A "Ceratophrys hybrid limegreen albino" is also depicted. I have had a couple of young albinos myself with green color like that (and even more intense). This has faded away in all of them, leaving them with only the typical yellow and orange colors.
I am not ordering frogs from the website mentioned above (not even sure that is possible) – I can get them from a local dealer.

EMWhite:
Thank you for your reply.
Regarding the fertility of Ceratophrys-hybrids: I once read a statement saying that pure C. ornata and C. cranwelli are very hard to find today, as most frogs offered are a mix of these two species.

If this is true, I think this would imply that the hybrids can probably breed with each other and with both of the pure species to produce a range of hybrids with different ratios of ornata:cranwelli genes.

I only have the 1994 book on horned frogs by Hunziker and it has nearly no information on hybrids and color variants, do you (or anyone else) know if any of the more recent books (Bartlett & Bartlett 2000, Both 2005, De Vosjoli 2006) cover this topic in more detail?

Best regards,
Nicholas

Nick,
If all, or most of the available ones today are hybrids, it would make sense that they were fertile. I don't actually know of any book containing the kind of info you are searching for. Though please don't let that dampen your hopes, I'm not too familiar with breeding these frogs, there is probably a plethora of literature out there on that topic. Best of luck to you and your frog endeavor.

Regards, EMWhite

I'm pretty sure that the Cranwelli X Cornuta (Fantasy) hybrids are infertile. But Cranwelli and Ornata are closer genetically so they might be fertile. That peppermint horned frog on that website sure looks interesting, It has similar markings as a cranwelli but has a brighter green color like an ornata.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3JkU5SRIrwg

according to philippe de vosjoli, horned frog husbandry pioneer, the rumor that most horned frogs in the hobby today are hybrids of ornata and cranwelli are completely false, as the tadpoles of this cross rarely survive, and surviving frogs are always sterile, just like every horned frog cross. thus, crossing hybrid horned frogs with other horned frogs would not work. all horned frog hybrids are sterile. show me a documented case that says otherwise, and i'll go back on my word.

Yeah you can definately tell that the majority of the frogs in the pet trade are not Ornata x cranwelli hybrids. The species are distinct and easy to tell apart, well froglets are a bit harder to tell the difference if you don't have a picture for reference. But in every pet store I've been in they label their horned frogs as "Ceratophrys Ornata" when clearly they are selling Cranwelli. This may be where this misconception occurs...pet stores label the wrong species.

For all interested, the most spectacular horned frog avial (besides C. cornuta) is the Scarlet peacock morph developed by Phillipe de Vosjoli. This is pure ornata, but lots of intense red replacing the normal green. Anyone who can post pics here email me and I'll send you some to post.
Hank

Nic, I looked at the peppermint pics on the website and they appear to be a cranwelli x ornata hybrid. Notice the skin protuberences which indicate ornata.
As far as fertile hybrids go, most should back cross with reasonable fertility. The exception would be cornuta hybrids which will be sterile, and will not even hybridize with ornata.
You would be far better off purchasing groups of small frogs and raising them to create your own hybrids. The cranwelli x ornata hybrids are usually avialable. The are sometimes called Orwell horned frogs.