M. Ebenaui or M. Betsileo?

[Geo]

How can you clearly distnguish between Mantella Ebenaui & Mantella Betsileo? I read somewhere recently that some M.E. have no back patterns while some do and the same for M.B. Are they in the same family but a different color/pattern morph? When I show people photos of my Mantellas I have a larger majority tell me that they are M.B. (my research confirms the likelihood that they are) but a slightly smaller fraction of folks tell me that they are M.E. I ask as I want to ensure that any new members I add to the habitat are compatible.

[FishChum]

One is orange the other is brown? Just a guess, Mine are the bronze Mantellas, but the color seems to change with the seasons from orange to brown. I think I read somewhere they may be the same frog? just some guesses, don't have the links anymore.

[FishChum]

I remember now, same frog's M,B & M,E just from different places in Madagascar. They are named according to where they are from. I'm pretty sure this is the answer you need.

[MantellaGuy]

You can only tell by Locality data really, if you know where the individuals are originally from (or where their ancestors are from if Captive Bred) then you have your answer.

Bronze Mantella (M.ebenaui) is from the northern parts of Madagascar (Nosy Be being one known locality for M.ebenaui) and Brown Leaf Mantella (M.betsileo) is scattered all around the Western-central to South-west Madagascar.
They are basically and predominantly difficult to I.D via Morphological methods, however it is believed that the M.betsileo has a horse shoe shape Blue marking on the under side of it's snout (along the chin line) and M.ebenaui will have a Trident shape to replace this. However it is not 100% full proof that this is correct, but people have used this as a basis for identification.
The only problem is, unless you have a wild caught specimen, you aren't certain of getting a exact species and more than likely you will be getting hybrids as until about 2007 they weren't considered separate species so a lot of people simply bought the newly imported specimens and stuck them together and simply bred them (Many Mantella species in the 90's were simply imported as "Mantella sp" with no naming of what they were and kept together).
They are both separate species though, this was confirmed a few years ago now. However, M.ebenaui was listed as an synonym of M.betsileo (pers.comm. Vences 1999). Originally though which is rather odd, M.betsileo was described in 1872 by the French naturalist Grandidier and the M.ebenaui was described by Boettger 1880 (8 years after M.betsileo) - The M.ebenaui specimens were all collected from Nosy Be if I remember rightly. lol

Anyway hope this helps a little bit!

[Geo]

Thanks everyone for the responses.

My own previous research confirmed a lot of what you shared here although there didn't seem to be a clear cut specific reference right across the board in the frog hobbyist community unless you are dealing with certain specific experienced breeders. It seemed that some people use it depending on what their own preferences are rather than any scientific related zoological cataloging. The confusion stems from which of the two terms people prefer to use it seems although usage should be based off the locale factor at the very least as already stated. I also noticed that a larger majority of references to M.E. refer to specimens typically witout the helix like pattern on the back while M.B. almost always seems to refer to the helix patterned specimens. Then there is the matter of slight color differences/morphs, ie brown - orange, bronze, yellowish brown, etc.

I have two WC specimens that I rescued from a local pet store a little under a year ago that they had cataloged as M.E. After pushing them to provide information about the specimens I found out that they were imported by a company called Midori who I attempted to contact without any successful responses. Afterwards I was advised that the store staff was advised that these specimens were wild caught but Midori would not provide the locale from which they were obtained.

I have a trio of M.B. from Understory that I have kept separate from the Midori pair until I can clearly ascertain if they are the same species or different morphs of the same species or what have you. To the naked eye they appear the same although one set is slightly more "bronze" for lack of a better word and has a more obvious helix pattern where as the other has a weaker / broken helix pattern. But this doesn't prove anything as it is my understanding that siblings in the same clutch can sometimes have the odd subtle recessive characteristic show up that is different from the remaining kin. To some this may not be a huge deal but if I am successful in establishing a breeding colony and was to pass along the offspring to others I would want to provide accurate info as much as was possible as to the actual species designation.

[Geo]

Learnt something that I found interesting today. As per Understory Enterprises, their Mantella Betsileo breeding stock were originally purchased from Mirdo in 2004/2005 and are wild caught. My 4 U.E. Mantella Betsileo's are then F-1 stock. Mirdo is the same importers who I discovered a short while ago supplies the local petstore where I got / rescued my original 2 M.B. from. Soooooo .... if Mirdo has always obtained their wild caught M.B. stock from the same region then both sets that I have are genetically compatible albeit my original two are recent WC and the ones I got from U.E are multi-generational captive bred. I have once again reached out to Mirdo to see if they can provide me with data regarding how/where they obtained their mantella livestock. Now that part of the puzzle is solved I am thinking that allowing both groups to be colonized together due to genetic compatibility will allow for offspirngs that will be identical to any found in the wild.

[AbranV]

Great post!