Body shape genetics

[peterj]

Just wondering if anyone was aware of heritable variations in body shape. In a recent spawn I got a small proportion of what appeared to be short or 'dwarfed' axolotls. If there'd only been one I wouldn't have given it a second thought, but there's definately a few. I've searched this forum and the ambystoma genetic stock centre but haven't found mention of this type of variation so I thought I'd ask if anyone else has had it come up. Here's some picks of a short melanoid and a couple of his siblings for comparison. The heads are of similar size but the regular siblings are considerably longer.

Short Melanoid

Standard Melanoid

Standard Albino

Short Melanoid

Standard Melanoid

 

[inkozana]

Oh! In the second photo of the short melanoid.. SO GORGEOUS look at those 'mudpuppy' eyes
I have to say that I once kept a golden albino who remained at 12cm for three years. I asked if dwarf axolotls were possible and the general response was that none had been recorded.

This is a very interesting thread and I can see it getting some attention in the next few days..

 

[Kaysie]

That's interesting. I wouldn't be surprised if there was some sort of genetic component to this, especially if you have multiple dwarves. I guess you could start breeding dwarves to dwarves, and see if it is heritable, and whether it's a recessive gene or not.

 

[Jennewt]

This is very interesting. If the dwarfs are roughly 25% of this batch of offspring, I would say it's clearly genetic, and would appear to be a recessive trait. And if the dwarfs have normal health overall, I think there could be a lot of people who would like to breed this trait. The next test is... can you breed together two dwarfs and get all dwarf offspring from them.

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NOTE ADDED: I hadn't seen Kaysie's reply when I posted. Great minds think alike.

 

[peterj]

Thanks for the replies. If it is genetic I don't think it's a simple mendelian recessive because the numbers are more like 5% than 25%. Pretty close to two recessive genes combined though... Their eating and development doesn't seem to suffer, they have quite a few 'standard' siblings with some catching up to do. You can see the difference when they swim, they have to wiggle nearly twice as much to get to the surface. I've had other lotls that have styed small, but with these guys their length is short with respect to their girth and their head size - most noticably in the distance between front and rear legs, and the length of the tail. While it's comical to watch, their movoment is not as impaired as a fancy doubletail goldfish or a halfmoon betta. I guess I might have to try a spawn in a year or so .

 

[kira]

Oh wow!! He is so cute! A lot of people are going to want the dwarf axies

 

[sherylbobbins]

My dear, you could make a small fortune with those incredibly awesome axolotls. Lucky duck.

 

[Neke]

I hope this is all that's wrong with mine, I've been quite stumped, Peter :happy:

Are the dwarfed ones healthy and normal aside from the obvious? My wildtype is a twit and refused to eat after I brought him home (He obviously likes you better) - he got really really skinny so was in the fridge for a while and hasn't grown much. He's slowly getting fatter again, but I haven't been able to figure out what is wrong with his tail - the kinks started to develop a few days after I got him. Did any of the dwarfed ones look like this when they were smaller? The leucistic seems fine, and has gotten huge. As you can see the top part of his tail is a bit bendy (I don't know if this is normal or not) but the tail itself is straight.

 

[coichards]

Love the last Pic. Sooooooo Cute!!!

 

[peterj]

The dwarf ones seem to be fine so far and (apart from being short) have outgrown some of their siblings without any special treatment. In this batch I also noticed a few with a wavy crest which your wild type seems to have (as do the albino and the dwarf pictured, but I also have dwarves without the wavy crest) and maybe its become more exaggerated on yours as it lost weight. I was feeding them earthworms as a staple and occasionally introduced other feeds, but I can't be certain all of them tried the other foods. Your setup looks beautiful and they've kept their fluffy gills so your conditions must be pretty good. If he doesn't improve let me know and we'll see if there's anything we can do. Love that last photo too, your leucistic has a great smile .

 

[Neke]

That's put my mind at ease, thanks Peter :happy: I'm guessing he stopped eating because of the heat or the stress of moving. They both seem happy, I'm just glad theres nothing wrong with him - I'd never seen a tail go like that before. And yes, the leucistic is so darn cute I wish I could jump in and play with her. I'm addicted, thanks again!

I wish I'd grabbed one of the dwarf ones now, they look really cool! You should definitely breed from those two again, maybe you could get a few more

 

[Tim S]

If you raise enough animals you are bound to see some strange things.

 

[peterj]

Ta for the pic Tim. Is dwarfing heritable in tiger salamanders?

 

[Dawn]

If you raise enough animals you are bound to see some strange things.

oh good lord that is cute!

 

[Cake]

Chibilotls eh? Keep a good record on their progress, I'm sure it will be very interesting.

 

[Kaysie]

Ta for the pic Tim. Is dwarfing heritable in tiger salamanders?

Since tigers so rarely breed in captivity (especially in the US), I suspect the answer to this question is non-existant.

 

[peterj]

Thanks Kaysie - I'm not familiar with them because we onyl have lotls here.

 

[Tim S]

The dwarf Tiger Salamander (named Stimpy) was a captive bred animal. A cross between a wild caught male Ambystoma tigrinum and a two year old captive A. mavortium.

A single half hearted attempt was made to mate him with a female F1 hybrid (A. tigrinum X A. mexicanum). Since he was unable to swim water level was set at about two inches allowing him to stand on his hind legs and gulp for air. He showed no interest in the female after six hours and the attempt was discontinued.

 

[b00f]

i want one, just so damn cute!

wats their approx length atm,

im really considering getting one,

if they are just as healthy, just smaller...

i donno how many people would be willing to part from their though,
as they are such a rare lil mutation....

 

[AGreenDarkness]

First, these dwarf axolotls are the cutest things I have ever seen! Second, how does everyone get their little darlings to sit still out of water, or get them into the separate containers? Anytime I try to even move Squishy to a large bowl she freaks out and ends up with cuts all over her tail. Am I doing something wrong? She has to move back home soon and I am dreading the fight that comes with attempting to get her into her moving cooler...any advice is greatly appreciated