Some questions about the difference in M and F

[rheann]

I am not sure on the reading, do female Axolotls have bigger heads than the males, or do the males have bigger heads than the females? I think Titus is a male, and I have no idea how old all of my Axolotls are. Grimace Gargamel might be a female, her head is much bigger than the other two Axolotls, and her body is short and stubby compared to the other two. The camera doesn't help much for her figure. The pictures are terrible to tell, but can anyone try and help me with if my axolotls are male or females, or is it still too early to tell, and can anyone give me an estimated guess on how old these Axolotls are? The buckets they are in are just ice cream buckets, and the little hex tank is 2 gallons.

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I'll be back with some more pictures of their undersides, I am afraid to touch them, but maybe I can just lift them a little out of the water just enough to see their bottom sides. I'll see what I can do.

 

[joan]

You shouldn't handle them regularly, but picking them up once for photo purposes won't stress them too much, as long as you don't move fast, and you wash your hands well, and then rinse them really well.

A tactic I use is to entice them to the surface with my finger wiggling (worm imitation) and take a pic through the glass. This often works best if you have one person being the worm, and one shooting the pic.

 

[rheann]

Thanks Joan

I found out something really cool about my digi camera, it's also a web camera. It said on it's package that it was, but I couldn't figure out how to get it to work, but now I know, so I am going into the petstore to get my water tested again, and if the water conditions are good then I'll put my Axies in the tank, and take some video clips of them

my camera can almost take an hours worth of video if I ever needed it to. I love my camera! I bought one of those little chip memory cards for it. Be back soon with clips perhaps!

 

[dev]

They look really young maybe 4 months or more to determine their sex.

 

[rheann]

really? four months? That is young. I really hope that I have at least a female or a male, because I want the Titus and Grimace to mate. I would also like to mate, or to mate with Mr. Nibbles, which will have to change it to Miss Nibbles or something if it's a female. This whole time I thought Titus and Mr. Nibbles were males, and that Grimace might be a female

leave it to me to figure out things on my own, then I don't get anywhere lol.

 

[rheann]

oh, I went to the pet store by the way, and my tank still isn't quite ready, but it should be ready in a week or so. I'm looking forward to putting the Axies in the tank and taking some videos of them

I can take some videos of them in their ice cream buckets, but I don't think it would be very interesting. They don't really have a lot of room to swim around and stuff. Everyone can expect to see some videos of my axies soon.

 

[dev]

yeah i dont know the sex of my axies either and you have seen them they dont look that tiny, i got about 2 months or so to go before i can determine their sex.

 

[rheann]

I don't understand the genetics very well, if I bred my black Axolotl with my white Axolotl, what would I get? would I get pied Axies, or black axies, or white, or both, or even something else? I think i should have paid better attention in my Biology class on flower genetics, then I would know lol.

 

[anne-marie]

Well I don't think you'd get pied axies, you'd end up with some black and some white axies.

 

[rheann]

Thanks Anne

I am wondering, what combination would it take to come up with Pied Axies? I am very curious about this, I would like to end up with at least one, and a friend of mine really wants one as well.

 

[anne-marie]

No idea. I imagine it would be some type of partial expression of a recessive trait, or maybe a co-dominance of two traits? (no, I don't really know what I'm talking about but doesn't it sound good

)

I reckon it would be pretty rare and if you got one which was pied, keep it and breed it like crazy. Those pics which Claire took at the Chester Zoo, maybe she should go back in breeding season and steal the eggs.

 

[rheann]

It would be very difficult for me to get a pied Axie here, and a friend of mine in Ireland is trying to find a pied Axie. I would really like to see if I could locate one for her. I'll post about it in another thread.

 

[grant]

If you bred your leustic and your "black" axie there is a wide range of colors you could get. I can't tell or remember if your axie is a dark wild type or a true melanoid. But if it is a melanoid that trait is recessive and I leustic is dominant. However, it would be nearly impossible to determine the outcome of breeding them without knowing where their bloodlines reach to. Say your melanoid had a parent that was a leustic then most of the babies would most likely be leustic; but, if your leustic had a parent that was melanoid then the chances of a melanoid would be fairly good. Kind of confusing but that is the bare basics of biology lol. If you want more information you will have to look into allelles, recessive and dominance, and tons of other stuff that has no use for everyday life unless breeding is your life lol.

 

[vanessa]

if melanoid is recessive then how can it have a leucistic parent becuase dont both the parents have to be homozygous for melanoid...unless both or one of the parents were heterozygous melanoid. hmm very confusing.lol. i like learning about genetics at school.

 

[joan]

It's rather impossible to figure out what your offspring will be unless you know what the parents exact genotype is.

Like, my juveniles are wildtype x leucistic. So they're all D/d, with D being the dominant wildtype coloring, and d being the recessive leucistic coloring. If I were to breed two of them, I'd get 50% wildtype offspring and 50% leucistic offspring. And leucistics can be recessive for the melanoid gene. It could be M/M or M/m, and if it was crossed with another M/M, you would get no melanoids (as there's no possible way to get a m/m configuration). If it was crossed with another recessive carrier, M/m, you would get half melanoid offspring. There are melanoid albinos, melanoids aren't just reserved for wildtype colors!

And you can't just breed to get a piebald specimen. They're exceedingly rare, and it's caused by a mutation, not genetic inheritance.

 

[rheann]

Thanks Grant, Vanessa, and Joan

Yep, I should have paid better attention in Biology. Wow, the pieds are caused from Mutation, not genetic? I never knew this, thanks for clearing that up for me

 

[claire]

has anyone seen the piebald axies from my college under the subject college axies? they breed at least 2ice every year. but now that ive finished college i might not be able to get any eggs. but im going to be doing a grooming course at the college around xmas time so if there are babies i might try and get some and raise them.hehe.

 

[rheann]

Hi Claire, I saw the pics, they are so lovely

If they breed them twice a year, would they be willing to send some eggs or babies to Ireland? I don't know about the Permits that are required, or if there are any.

 

[claire]

i could send some to ireland if i do get some!

. but when they tried to raise the babies at the beginning of this year they just turned out to be a very pink leucistic colour. the pic of one of the babies is the one on that college axies page. very pink.

 

[rheann]

Claire, if you can send them to Ireland, I would greatly appreciate it if you could get some

Thank you

My friend would surely love to have one or two. Let me ask her about it, and I will let you know, or maybe she could possibly travel to where you are, and pick them up. She likes to travel

I will get back to you about it. Please let me know if you can get some pied axies, or just some axies.