- Messages
- 577
- Location
- Nottingham, UK
If one, possibly private, breeder had done the cross and initial fixing of the traits there may not be a lot of variation in the resulting generations. This could give the consistent offspring that are apparently now seen (I haven't bred this Apistogramma so this is reasoned conjecture rather than my experience).
As a hobbyist breeding these fish what you might think of as F2 fish (i.e. the fish bred from your first babies) are in fact not this but simply another line bred generation and shouldn't differ much from their parents or grandparents.
A lot of the mystery about this hybrid iseems to be about what exactly are it's parents, if indeed it is a hybrid. The lack of females and apparent Far East origin would seem to back up a man-made hypothesis for it's creation though.
It would be intersting to see if the captive bred spawns have a sex bias towards males too.
As to the lack of long fins and albinos. These can't be selected until the actual mutation occurs in the population. With a hybrid you may actually delay the expression of such characteristics as recessive mutations such as albinism may be different gene mutations in the two parent species and their expression supressed further. This mechanism is part of what gives the hybrid vigour that occurs when a hybrid is produced, whether between species, populations or captive bred strains (an outcross). I'm sure it's just a matter of time though....
As a hobbyist breeding these fish what you might think of as F2 fish (i.e. the fish bred from your first babies) are in fact not this but simply another line bred generation and shouldn't differ much from their parents or grandparents.
A lot of the mystery about this hybrid iseems to be about what exactly are it's parents, if indeed it is a hybrid. The lack of females and apparent Far East origin would seem to back up a man-made hypothesis for it's creation though.
It would be intersting to see if the captive bred spawns have a sex bias towards males too.
As to the lack of long fins and albinos. These can't be selected until the actual mutation occurs in the population. With a hybrid you may actually delay the expression of such characteristics as recessive mutations such as albinism may be different gene mutations in the two parent species and their expression supressed further. This mechanism is part of what gives the hybrid vigour that occurs when a hybrid is produced, whether between species, populations or captive bred strains (an outcross). I'm sure it's just a matter of time though....