Re: [Killietalk] xanthism

[Scott Davis <unclescott at prodigy_net>]

Golden guppies are fairly common. When an old strain of Endler's (just killies who give birth to young alive?) began to throw golds here, I muddled through some of the guppy books. It may have been Iwasaki's book which suggested that gold colored bodies were caused by either the absence of  melanin or by the presence of much smaller than usual melanophores.  

The Endler strain has been pretty consistent. However after a time they began throwing the more complete albinos. Someone suggested that perhaps two genes (on a chromosome?) were at play in that case.

More recently some of that original Endler's strain have begun throwing fry which retained the black and showed none of the reds and greens so characteristic of Endler's livebearers. Those seem like candidates for lineatus chow.

I have never had the nerve to take a tail clipping of a golden Endler's and put it under a microscope. Probably need to draft someone who would know what they are doing.

That is odd, what happened with that Cross River male. Would that be an example of incomplete dominance? Were the melanophores just late in developing? Would the golden juveniles have a double dose of the "gold gene" -  one golden gene contributed by that male and one by a female of that strain? Were maybe 3/4ths of that batch of fry normally colored?

James Langhammer. on the old (Richard Sexton sponsored) livebearers list, suggested that albinism might be caused by somewhat different genetic combinations, even in different strains of the same species - of guppy in that case. (I'm way out of my league here and can't do more than allude to that observation.)

Saw something similar with some Aphanius mento, abruptly inherited. Didn't have the opportunity to continue that line. Of course there are golden angelfish (developed about the same time by two different parties), gold gouramis, that lineatus, a couple variations of golden lyretails and other golds in the aquarium hobby.

You have probably read Andrew Broome's account on the golden (wonder) lineatus on the New Zealand Killie group's site. Comparisons might or might not be useful. A look at a bit of the skin on a fin clipping might be too. It is an interesting topic and I too wish I knew more.

All the best!
Scott

Gary Elson or Mary Frauley <fraulels at videotron_ca> wrote: I've posted a query on this before and had no responses, but I remain both curious and not well informed on a phenomenon I'm seeing in my tanks. For the second time in my killiekeeping experience, I have had a xanthic sport. The first was an A poliaki, long since dead and gone (but photographed). The second was an F-1 bivittatum from the Cross River region (Oban Hills) in Nigeria. I had a male that was about 2/3 gold for his first year, and who then developed normal biv colouration after. He now has no more than a gold tip on the end of his snout.
I let him breed in a natural set-up and now have an apparent pair of juveniles that are completely gold. They're in with normally coloured individuals.
The poliaki retained his markings for his 3.5 year life. The biv was gold for a year. I'm waiting to see if these second generation sports will eventually develop normal patterning with time. Still, the phenomenon seems different. Any comments?
Gary
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