Genetics confuse me

I could be wrong but that last little guy looks more leucistic but you'd need a side view to see better. The spots don't look to be anywhere but on the neural crest and the top of it's head. Piebals have the dark color in patches that are on the lower part of their bodies as well.
OUCH 60 quid each :eek:

I'm afraid all I can see in the other pics is different variations of wildtypes. Some very yellow (which most of mine are slowly growing out of) and others more traditional looking.

Good luck, hopefully you can get your Golden GFP somewhere soon. Yes it is helpful to know the parent's genetics when figuring out what you would get from a specific cross but you can figure it out by breeding with know animals and breeding back their off spring to each other or back to them to check some of the more difficult genes.
I crossed my wild male with golden female and got golden albinos so I know my male carries the albino gene. Also got some white albinos wilds and melanoids but no melanoid albinos :roll: did het a dozen or so hyper-melanoids though so I'm happy

Could the GFP gene not be co-dominant that is it shows in varying degrees depending on whether it has a hetro or homo. So it would show at least in part if the gene was present. Much like the curls in peoples hair.
Homo for the curly gene gives very curly hair. A hetro mix gives waves while those without the gene have straight hair? It's been a while since I dabbled in genetics, it's just a thought ;)

I would have to challenge the thinking that all Gold animals are albinos though, some like my little fish and some of my more recent offspring are just freaks with dysfunctional genes ;) Not 'goldens' in the true sense of the color name as such but very much look the part except for the darker eyes.
 
Actually, if you breed goldens with goldens, all of your offspring will be ALBINO, but not all will be golden.
Click to expand...

Ah, thank-you for correcting me.
As I said I'm a complete newbie on the topic of axolotls, and was basing my info on a single paper I'd read, which now that I've looked at it again, is from 1984 (so therefore no longer very reliable).
 
MereB said:
I could be wrong but that last little guy looks more leucistic but you'd need a side view to see better. The spots don't look to be anywhere but on the neural crest and the top of it's head. Piebals have the dark color in patches that are on the lower part of their bodies as well.
OUCH 60 quid each :eek:

I'm afraid all I can see in the other pics is different variations of wildtypes. Some very yellow (which most of mine are slowly growing out of) and others more traditional looking.

Good luck, hopefully you can get your Golden GFP somewhere soon. Yes it is helpful to know the parent's genetics when figuring out what you would get from a specific cross but you can figure it out by breeding with know animals and breeding back their off spring to each other or back to them to check some of the more difficult genes.
I crossed my wild male with golden female and got golden albinos so I know my male carries the albino gene. Also got some white albinos wilds and melanoids but no melanoid albinos :roll: did het a dozen or so hyper-melanoids though so I'm happy
Click to expand...

I did think that the color pattern was a little too uniform to be a piebald, oh well. Gotta save my $60 for something else! Like an andersoni (I miss my male :()

Does it hurt the offspring to breed a sisterXbrother, fatherXdaughter, etc? I'm paranoid about relatives getting near each other, I don't want anyone to be harmed!

Would breeding a gold albino to a albino-gene-carrying wild type give you gold albinos and regular albinos? I had to look up what a hyper-melanoid was, funny enough I searched in google and came up with a past post of your's Meredyth, they are cute!

Related to the genetics topic... Can you breed ambystoma andersoni to ambystoma mexicanum? My co-workers are VERY curious (everytime I mention my Anderson's, this question comes up!) and I just want to give them an answer!

~Emily~
musilvr4eva
 
Theoretically, yes, they could interbreed. It would be just like axolotls crossbreeding with tiger salamanders.

Should you? Probably not. Why muddy up the genetics of either species? They need all the help they can get!

If you bred a golden albino (a/a, D/x) to a wildtype (A/a, D/x), you would get 50% wildtype, 50% albino. Depending on if both parents are recessive for leucistics, you could also get leucistics. If both parents are recessive for leucistic, you'll get 25% wildtype, 25% leucistic, 25% golden albino, and 25% white albino.
 
As for GFP heredity...

Here's my theory (take it with a grain of salt!) I think that GFP is a mitochondrial trait. That is, the offspring inherit it from mostly the mother. So if the mother is GFP, the offspring will be 'sort of' GFP, having received some of the GFP protein through mitochondrial DNA.
 
Kaysie said:
If you bred a golden albino (a/a, D/x) to a wildtype (A/a, D/x), you would get 50% wildtype, 50% albino. Depending on if both parents are recessive for leucistics, you could also get leucistics. If both parents are recessive for leucistic, you'll get 25% wildtype, 25% leucistic, 25% golden albino, and 25% white albino.
Click to expand...

Oh I see, so I need to figure out the dominant and recessive genes to know what the babies will be. So confusing. Maybe axolotls should come with papers and be registered like pure bred dogs or something. Sorry, corny joke.

~Emily~
musilvr4eva
 
I'll take a look at some papers on GFP once I've finished my report for one of my subjects, and might be able to find out for you guys how it is transfered.

If not I might be able to ask some of my genetics tutors if they have any idea- they might not seeing as one of them works with the conservation of lizards and the other is in microbiology, but it's worth a shot.
The tutor I have for topic I have to write a report for might know, because he studies colour (but he uses bugs, so then again he might not know).
 
The easiest way to determine what sort of recessive genes your axolotls are carrying is to know the phenotype (color) of the parents and grandparents.

Or you can start breeding them, and see what colors you get out of their offspring, and their grandchildren. Then you'll know. Sometimes you have to breed offspring back to their parents to see what's going on.

As far as genetics, sometimes color genetics is not straightforward. Thankfully for us, in axolotls, it's simple Mendelian (dominant/recessive) genetics for the most part. But some species demonstrate incomplete dominance or codominance, or other weird things. Then there's mutations...
 
It's ok to breed offspring to parent? It won't hurt anybody right? Father to daughter, brother to sister, it's all doesn't matter?

~Emily~
musilvr4eva
 
Oh, and I ended up coming home with that piebald baby. The mother was rather speckled, so I figured I go ahead and get it. I went and got rid of 110 of the baby wild types yesterday. I traded 15 of them for $80 worth of cichlid food at the first store. The second store took 80 of them and I left with a baby lima shovelnose catfish (about four inches long and stinking cute), an apricot colored albino pacman frog (I'm way in love with her already, she's beautiful and so small compared to my adult), three golden albino axolotls and the piebald axolotl. That was $340 worth of merchandise. Then the third store bought ten of them and gave me $80, then I spent $25 before walking out the door (got a really nice looking royal pleco). Not to bad for a bunch of babies. It is a little sad to only have 30 left, such an empty tank now, but at least I have more room to grow up my leucistic and albino babies!

~Emily~
musilvr4eva
 
You can inbreed them, but be aware that by doing that, you risk having a higher expression of lethal genes and having weird things pop up.

Definitely don't do it for many generations in a row.
 
Oh that would be sad. Any inbreeding would not happen intentionally, I don't want to mess anybody up lol.

~Emily~
musilvr4eva
 
110 seems like a lot of babies..... it also sounds like you got a rather large hall for them... don't you just love bartering systems....
 
I always seem to get a lot of babies, over 100 every time. I've been breeding for a couple years now and I cant think of a time where I got a small batch. Does that amount seem unhealthy? I never thought of that.

And yes, bartering is nice, cash is nice too, but bartering is a nice alternative!

~Emily~
musilvr4eva
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
General chit-chat
Help Users
  • No one is chatting at the moment.
    There are no messages in the chat. Be the first one to say Hi!
    Back
    Top