05/21/2024
This will be great for the future of the dart frog hobby! There are so many amazing small obligate and pumilio locales that could very easily vanish from the hobby without an effort like this.
This is an important announcement:
Here at FrogDaddy, I’ve always dreamed of having a genetic bank, of sorts, for every poison frog in the hobby. We are far away from that dream, only due to lack of finances. Over the years, I have shifted my focus to what I am passionate about. Most likely thanks to William Newell, my ex business partner (but still amazing friend), I have fallen in love with small obligates, pumilio specifically.
Many of you have noticed that pumilio have been few and far between, even though we have over 100 pairs. This is because I am taking a new initiative to tie together something financially (somewhat - haha) feasible, and my dream of creating a gene bank for poison frogs. I made the executive decision to start holding back and acquiring more and more small obligates. This has resulted in low stock for the public, and I know it has frustrated many. All the cryptic build-up aside, here is the new initiative:
We will be adding, slowly, 75 additional small obligate pairs to our breeding supply. We hope to include every single locale of pumilio that is represented within the USA. Of course, this is a monumental increase and we must move slowly due to lack of funds. There are still many locales that we have singles of, lost to time, that we hope you all can help with. Over the next week I will post everything we hope the community can come together on. Many small obligate localities are dying out and disappearing from our captive breeding populations. Whether it be greed, pride, or negligence, we need to stop competing so much with each other and work together. I am hopeful that this new initiative comes to fruition, because at FrogDaddy, we are dedicated to preserving captive breeding of poison frogs for years to come.
I want to thank everyone for their patience as we build up pairs, acquire new locales, and pair up disappearing ones, like Uyama River, Rio Teribe, Pastores, and many others. I hope that future onlookers that can help will partner with us to preserve these locales for the next generation of keepers, and that we can keep inspiring for years to come.
Thank you for reading, and be ready in 2026 for a much greater availability!
A special thank you to Josh Yates, of Frog and Frond, for photographing our entire collection, Oophaga and all. This project will hopefully come to a head in the beginning of 2026 as well, to compile a (mostly) complete set of professional photos of Oophaga pumilio.
And yes, pictured is a granulifera “Quepos”.
