One of the things that this (and other herp hobbies) uses in a confusing fashion are the Filial generation numbering system. For some reason, people use this numbering system to denote how many generations a frog or frogs are removed from wild collected animals. While this seems straight forward in actuality it is anything but as I will set an example to demonstrate.
For example F0 is often used to denote the wild collected adults, while subsequent generations are denoted as
F1, F2, F3 etc with the number indicating which generation it is removed from the wild.
So wild caught adults = F0 x F0 produces F1 and F1 x F1 produces F2 etc.
The problem with this system is that it breaks down as soon as you are not pairing within a generation...
examples
F0 x F10, F1 x F3, F5 x F0 and so forth.
This brings up the question is how do you correctly notate how close they are to the wild caught generation.. obviously F0 x F10 is not going to be as close to the wild caught geneotype (and potentially phenotype) as F0 x F5, or even F1 x F1) and how do you lable it? Should it be F1, F5 (add the two numbers together and divide (this was proposed to me as a method) or F11? The correct answer is F1...
The reason this breakdown occurs is because the number system is being used in a manner for which it was not designed. A correct usage would be as follows
Parent generation regardless of closeness to wild caught generation is FO (this is because it is a controlled pairing), offspring of those parents are F1, if the F1s are paired together those are F2... If the F1s are paired with something other than thier generation then they are relabled F0 and the offspring are F1. Now some are going are to think that this is confusing and could be interpreted to mean that the frogs are closer to wild type, but is that any less confusing than representing a frog as close to wild type when it is from a F1 x F8 or F4 x F5 versus a F0 x F4 and so forth?
If people want to correctly communicate how many generations a frog or frogs are removed from the wild, then they should simply state that the male had these anscestor(s) (if known) this many generations (again, if known) back that was/were wild caught and repeat the statement for the female. This way people can avoid the confusion of using the F generational number system to attempt to indicate degree of descent from the wild when it wasn't meant to be used in the manner the hobby is attempting to use it......
For those interested in reading on how it should be used, a quick google search will pull up multiple references for it.
Some comments
Ed
For example F0 is often used to denote the wild collected adults, while subsequent generations are denoted as
F1, F2, F3 etc with the number indicating which generation it is removed from the wild.
So wild caught adults = F0 x F0 produces F1 and F1 x F1 produces F2 etc.
The problem with this system is that it breaks down as soon as you are not pairing within a generation...
examples
F0 x F10, F1 x F3, F5 x F0 and so forth.
This brings up the question is how do you correctly notate how close they are to the wild caught generation.. obviously F0 x F10 is not going to be as close to the wild caught geneotype (and potentially phenotype) as F0 x F5, or even F1 x F1) and how do you lable it? Should it be F1, F5 (add the two numbers together and divide (this was proposed to me as a method) or F11? The correct answer is F1...
The reason this breakdown occurs is because the number system is being used in a manner for which it was not designed. A correct usage would be as follows
Parent generation regardless of closeness to wild caught generation is FO (this is because it is a controlled pairing), offspring of those parents are F1, if the F1s are paired together those are F2... If the F1s are paired with something other than thier generation then they are relabled F0 and the offspring are F1. Now some are going are to think that this is confusing and could be interpreted to mean that the frogs are closer to wild type, but is that any less confusing than representing a frog as close to wild type when it is from a F1 x F8 or F4 x F5 versus a F0 x F4 and so forth?
If people want to correctly communicate how many generations a frog or frogs are removed from the wild, then they should simply state that the male had these anscestor(s) (if known) this many generations (again, if known) back that was/were wild caught and repeat the statement for the female. This way people can avoid the confusion of using the F generational number system to attempt to indicate degree of descent from the wild when it wasn't meant to be used in the manner the hobby is attempting to use it......
For those interested in reading on how it should be used, a quick google search will pull up multiple references for it.
Some comments
Ed