C. cyanurus: will colors breed true?

[Jennewt]

Please read the following info before voting...

I am conducting a little experiment. I have a breeding group of C. cyanurus. In 2010, I raised about 200 offspring. As usual for this species, they were highly variable in color.

I picked out the 6 lightest and 6 darkest individuals. I have the two groups housed separately, and will allow them to breed.

What will be the outcome? Will the color follow some kind of typical genetic inheritance? Or will both groups have the same full spectrum of colors in their offspring? Take a guess, and I'll give you the answer in a year or two!

Here are photos of the two color-selected groups.

 

[Molch]

I voted for # 4..if I'm right, what do I win?

I doubt it's a simple dominant/recessive because there seems to be a continuum of colors rather than a strict dark/light division.

btw, I'm very partial to those blondies. I dunno, but they are just as cute as buttons (yes yes, the dark ones too...)

 

[Molch]

y' know..they remind me of horses. Some of those light ones look like duns or buckskins who are bay horses with a color-dilution gene. Just like a sorrel is a diluted black horse. The newts even have the darker eel stripe down the back like the buckskin horses.

One wonders if dark is the basic colors and the lighter shades come from varying expressions of one or more color-modifying or dilution genes.

But I'm not enough of a geneticist to say much more...:wacko:

 

[Otterwoman]

I think they'll be mostly like the adults at first but if you keep doing it for a few generations (choosing light to light breeders) that eventually they would breed true.

 

[caleb]

Is the dark/light colour permanent- can cyanurus change colour as C. orientalis do? As I understand it, most if not all amphibians are physiologically capable of becoming darker or lighter relatively quickly.

I've just been reading some old pieces about the influence of background colour on rearing Salamandra larvae- larvae reared on a light-coloured background supposedly have larger yellow patches than those reared against a dark background. It would be interesting to know if this or other species show similar effects.

 

[Molch]

I know my alpines have all turned a lighter shade since I went to bare-bottom tanks...

 

[Jennewt]

From what I've seen, C. cyanurus can shift slightly in color, but dark individuals are consistently darker over time than light individuals. I don't know if they are affected by the color of their container at all, but I did raise one batch in a black container and still got both dark and light animals.

 

[michael]

I think their will be 3 color phases. When you breed the light color to light you will get some with no dark pigment at all. These might tend to be weaker than the light and dark phase. I think the light phase is some kind of recessive gene but possibly not just a simple recessive.

 

[michael]

Not much dark pigment on the belly of this one.

 

[Molch]

hey, just wondering: any preliminary results yet?

 

[Jennewt]

I have the results documented. The correct answer was the 3rd: Colors will be variable from both groups, but strongly skewed to the adults' colors; light adults will produce mostly light offspring and same for dark. I am somewhat surprised, as I had expected less of an effect. I will post the photos shortly.

 

[Jennewt]

I tried to make these photos as consistent as possible for comparisons of colors. I took all of them today under similar lighting conditions (sunlight) with the same camera settings.

First we take a step back - here is the Founder group (my original group of adult animals).

Here is the group of color-selected DARK offspring, after they grew up. [Note: 2 of the dark juveniles died, and there were no males among the 4 after they matured, so the male was borrowed from the founder group in order to obtain offspring.]

Here is the lighter group of selected animals after they grew up.

Here are two photos of the second-generation offspring from the darker parents. They were in two tanks, so there are two photos.

And here are the second-generation animals from the light colored parents:

 

[Mark]

I think that's conclusive!

 

[Molch]

awesome. That's great stuff.

 

[Sawyer]

What a great experiment. Thanks for taking the time to allow the rest of us to results of breeding selected animals.

 

[Elliriyanna]

I am very curious how this turned out

 

[Jennewt]

I am very curious how this turned out

I'm not sure what you mean. The results are posted above. If the photos aren't obvious... I would say that the poll choice #3 was correct.

 

[Elliriyanna]

Oh I missed the pictures somehow ... thank you. Its very interesting to know.

 

[stanleyc]

Are you planning on continuing this experiment for another generation?