Spotlight on trafficked herps: Dendrobates leucomelas ‘Rio Negro’ AKA ‘Bolivar Gold’

Another trafficked herp post already? And it is a dart frog again? Yes, and yes; there’s plenty of trafficked herp species, and very many Dendrobatids are a member of that club (very roughly, half of dart taxa in captivity are trafficked-origin).

This locale (or morph, according to who you talk to — read on for details) came from the Netherlands to the US for the first time in 2023, as far as I can tell.  The Netherlands is a common source for trafficked dart frogs; roughly a decade earlier the same path was taken by ‘Bluefoot’ AKA ‘Cerro Autana’ leucomelas (the latter name from the protected area in Venezuela from which they originate).

The Rio Negro is a tributary of the Amazon, mostly in Brazil though has some of its length in Colombia and Venezuela.  This river apparently lent the earliest morph name used in the US to this frog, though whether that corresponds to the collection locality isn’t known.  One story is that this name was created by a US breeder (of quite ill repute, it is worth noting) of this morph in order to make the frog sound more exotic.  

It has been claimed — the first time I read it, by a seller of at least a few trafficked-lineage dart frogs — that these are not a new locale, but line bred from 'Fine Spot' leucomelas to have much finer and fewer spots.  It should be noted that ‘Fine Spot’ leucomelas are also a trafficked line — from Estado Bolívar, Venezuela.  (Even more confusingly, leucomelas ‘Bolivar’ — sometimes conflated with ‘Fine Spot’ — is a different morph, which is thought to have been trafficked from Brazil and was possibly not in the US as recently as 2021.  Probably at this point the two have been interbred, since the distinction between the morphs isn’t always made.)

But no evidence of any such selective breeding of ‘Fine Spot’ — such as photos of intermediate morph frogs (or indeed, actual intermediate frogs), or online comments about such an ongoing project — seems available, though in virtually all cases of selective breeding of herps there is talk of such projects over the years they take to develop.  

It also has been claimed that ‘Rio Negro’ AKA ‘Bolivar Gold’ originate somewhere at the border of Brazil, Venezuela and Colombia.  This origin location is credible, since leucomelas in the region near Tepequém look remarkably like the captive examples of ‘Rio Negro’ AKA ‘Bolivar Gold’.  Tepequém is very roughly in that three corners area, and is a relatively well outfitted tourist area featuring multiple lodging options and a small airfield.  Starting with leucomelas ‘Fine Spot’ (a very different looking frog) to get to something that already exists in a very accessible area — that has probably already been exploited in the past — isn’t a very plausible theory.

All evidence suggests that Dendrobates leucomelas ‘Rio Negro’ AKA ‘Bolivar Gold’ is a Brazilian form, and since CITES records show that Brazil has never permitted an export of live leucomelas we know that this locale is trafficked.

Those keepers looking to keep Dendrobates leucomelas would do well to seek out those specimens bred from Guyana exports, of which there are many legal examples. 



https://www.dendroboard.com/posts/3197129/
https://www.dendroboard.com/threads/dendrobates-leucomelas.361318/
Edmonds, Devin. (2021). Poison frogs traded and maintained by U.S. private breeders. Herpetological Review. 52. 779-786.
https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/290730979 
https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/125939824
https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/20348052