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Re: Are Albinos Hybrids?

George asked,
        "After being away from keeping killies for thirty years and coming
back to the hobby I can see that there are many new and different varieties
out there now. Would I be correct in assuming that any of the albino
varieties I see available are a form of hybrid and not a wild strain that
has been collected and maintained ?????

Answer....................
        Albinos are not created by hybridization.  In fact, hybrids are
probably the least likely of all organisms to create albinos.  Albinism is a
recessive genetic trait.  That means that the organism must have received
the gene for albinism from both parents.  If the organism has one albino
gene from one parent and one normal pigmentation gene from its other parent,
the organism will ALWAYS "look" like a normally pigmented specimen.  When a
hybrid is created, recessive genes are virtually always covered in
expression by dominant genes.  Indeed, dominant genes can be so strong in
hybrids that the offspring can be especially expressive of traits like size,
color, etc.  When this happens it is called "hybrid vigor," and the
offspring is frequently referred to as a "sport."  In order to maintain an
albino strain of any organism, it is necessary to keep the line pure and
inbred to a degree to ensure that the offspring always receive the recessive
gene from both parents.  If another genetic line is introduced, at least two
generations are required to again produce albino offspring with the
recessive gene from both parents.

        Some breeders will deliberately introduce another "normal" line of
parentage to help prevent the expression of OTHER recessive traits that are
separate from color and not desirable, such as spinal deformations.  One
old-line albino bred to to a normal-colored new line and producing a
"hybrid" set of offspring will always produce normal colored young that each
have the recessive albino gene from the albino parent and the dominant
normal gene from the new line.  When these 50:50 young are bred back to the
albino parent, the offspring will always be 50% albino and 50%
normal-looking.  If the 50:50 young are bred to each other, they will
produce 25% pure normal-gene offspring (look normal), 50% 50:50 young with
one of each color gene (look normal), and 25% albino young with two albino
genes (look albino).  If the 50:50 young are bred with the normal, new-line
parent, the young will all LOOK normal, but 50% will have the albino gene
hidden inside.  In the killie hobby, I believe that most albino strains are
from inbred aquarium strains and not from strains with location tags, and so
are quite far from hybridization.

I hope this helps.  (How'd I do Doug?)

Jay Moylan

By the way, George, welcome back to the hobby!!!

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