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Question: Confused about the genetics/colorations of my larvae, what do you all think?

Ashlimarie83

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My het copper female and GFP het copper/ het golden albino axolotls bred and I have been raising my first clutch of 100+ eggs for about 2 months now.

They are growing wonderfully besides a few food mishaps (darn you brineshrimp and darn you black worms!!), but the colors they seem to be expressing and not at all what I would have expected.

After a few difficult punnet squares (working in that weird copper gene!) I thought I should have gotten roughly 25% copper and golden albino and the rest wild. But to my confusion I seem to have about 30% leucistics, 15% golden and white albinos, only 5% coppers, and the rest various shades of wildtype (with a few odd looking greyish wildtypes?).

Any insight on my larvae?

Couldn't load all of them so here is a link to the album on imgur.

Axolotls growing - Album on Imgur
 

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auntiejude

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You haven't considered the combination or overlap of the recessive genes, and how some colurs mask others.

Both your parents are also het for leucisitc, so that explain that. The white albinos will be leucisitc AND albino.

But if an animal is both albino AND copper you'll only see the albino colouring, the copper will be masked by the albino genes. The same goes for leucisitc, the only way to tell is to look closely at their eyes - they will be red rather than black.

So you probably have your expected 25 % coppers, but some are also albino or leucisitc, so the copper colour is masked.
 

Ashlimarie83

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You haven't considered the combination or overlap of the recessive genes, and how some colurs mask others.

Both your parents are also het for leucisitc, so that explain that. The white albinos will be leucisitc AND albino.

But if an animal is both albino AND copper you'll only see the albino colouring, the copper will be masked by the albino genes. The same goes for leucisitc, the only way to tell is to look closely at their eyes - they will be red rather than black.

So you probably have your expected 25 % coppers, but some are also albino or leucisitc, so the copper colour is masked.

Tch. :( I wish I had known about the parents being het for leucistic from the breeder...

Also, I did not know copper was that recessive! Do you mean I should check the albinos and leucistics for red eyes or the ones I have identified as coppers?

Dang. I'm going to have to work on getting a true copper to strengthen my line then. I found someone who had an adult male, but I'd prefer and adult female. :/

Thanks for answering auntijude!
 

michael

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As the larvae get larger their phenotype will become much more evident. When genotype is only known one or two generations back their are often surprises. Leucistic coppers are quite desirable. I think it will take quite a bit of study to figure out exactly what your offspring are.

An adult male copper would give you a good opportunity to breed for coppers. You can do many more outcrosses and backcrosses with a male copper than you could do with a female copper.
 

Ashlimarie83

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As the larvae get larger their phenotype will become much more evident. When genotype is only known one or two generations back their are often surprises. Leucistic coppers are quite desirable. I think it will take quite a bit of study to figure out exactly what your offspring are.

An adult male copper would give you a good opportunity to breed for coppers. You can do many more outcrosses and backcrosses with a male copper than you could do with a female copper.

What exactly do you mean by leucistic coppers? I've never heard of such a type. Is that what auntiejude was mentioning about checking for the red eyes?

And yes, adult males would offer more flexibility, but I rather enjoy the gill length, iridescence, and (though it may not be passable) temperament of my male axolotl and I prefer his genes. But, it seems rather unlikely of me finding an adult any time soon. :(
 

michael

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I've only seen pictures of juvenile leucistic coppers. From what I can tell is the black part of a dirty leucistic copper will show the copper color. The eyes will be different than on regular leucistics. Many people claim to know the phenotype of very young larvae. For the oddball stuff they need some size on them before their permanent color is apparent.

Their are a lot of crosses being made with coppers. This creates new color types that have not been seen before or have rarely been seen. Hopefully this also strengthens the health of copper axolotls. The genetics gets a little complicated when dealing with dihybrid and even more complex crosses. The genotype can sometimes be masked or one phenotype could be mistaken for another phenotype.

To add to the confusion their are lots of new names being made up for axolotl types. Some people try to "brand" their axolotls and make claims of being the only people to have that type.
 

Ashlimarie83

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I've only seen pictures of juvenile leucistic coppers. From what I can tell is the black part of a dirty leucistic copper will show the copper color. The eyes will be different than on regular leucistics. Many people claim to know the phenotype of very young larvae. For the oddball stuff they need some size on them before their permanent color is apparent.

Their are a lot of crosses being made with coppers. This creates new color types that have not been seen before or have rarely been seen. Hopefully this also strengthens the health of copper axolotls. The genetics gets a little complicated when dealing with dihybrid and even more complex crosses. The genotype can sometimes be masked or one phenotype could be mistaken for another phenotype.

To add to the confusion their are lots of new names being made up for axolotl types. Some people try to "brand" their axolotls and make claims of being the only people to have that type.

Would you mind sending me the pictures of the "leucisitic coppers" if you can find them? A google search did not turn up anything except something german that I couldn't translate.

Do you mean instead of black speckles they would have brown speckles and red pupils?
I am not completely sure on a few of them, but I am pretty much 99.99% certain of the coppers that I can identify now. One of them is actually GFP as well. I took a picture, but I don't like having the blacklight on the GFP ones too long because I feel like it stresses them out (he started swimming around a lot so the pic is blurry).
 

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michael

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The leucistic coppers are on one of the many axolotl facebook groups. I like the facebook groups but think caudata.org and axolotl.org are still some of the best resources for axolotl info.

I have not proven out very much info on coppers and am not sure that all of the info floating around is accurate. We will know much more as more of them are bred. Just one example is some resources say all copper axolotls have red or pink eyes. Some resources say they do not all have red or pink eyes.
 

Ashlimarie83

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The leucistic coppers are on one of the many axolotl facebook groups. I like the facebook groups but think caudata.org and axolotl.org are still some of the best resources for axolotl info.

I have not proven out very much info on coppers and am not sure that all of the info floating around is accurate. We will know much more as more of them are bred. Just one example is some resources say all copper axolotls have red or pink eyes. Some resources say they do not all have red or pink eyes.

Oh wow! What an interesting and weird coloration. I'll be interested to see if they keep updating to show how the colors develop.

I am not actually sure if I would have recognized that one from a golden albino or pale leucistic from my brood. I'll have to go check and compare.

Here also is the picture if anyone else wanted to see. The left is the leucistic copper, and the right is a plain leucistic.
 

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blushed

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I want the grey one ?

Unfortunately I cannot help with the question but it looks like you got some good info!
 
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