# Endler Cross Breeding



## Shrimpette (Feb 17, 2015)

Do female endlers contribute to fry coloring/pattern? I have a young female yellow jacket endler who just lost what was intended to be her mate. I have pure strain endlers as well (in a different tank of course).

If I give her a pure strain male as a mate will the resulting fry be some kind of mixed up color/pattern or will they look like their father? I suspect they will be a blend but if they turn out like the father I might introduce one of the pure strain males and keep them in a separate tank than the rest of the pure strain.

So I guess I'm asking if the female endlers pass on a color variation from their fathers, or are they "blanks" that will produce whatever pattern the male contributes?


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## Rjjm (Jan 1, 2012)

The female endler/guppy holds their partners sperms even as a baby and fertilize them only when desired by female so even when you mix a different color or strain, you will never know what will come out may it be from previous partner or new one


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## Shrimpette (Feb 17, 2015)

Hmm well these two were raised from fry together (in their own tank) and weren't quite old enough to breed yet so as far as I know she wouldn't have any sperm stored in her yet as the male was never old enough to produce any.

So if she's yellow jacket bred for first time with a pure strain male, what would I end up with?


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## Transposon (Sep 19, 2012)

*Sorry, the short answe is I don't know*

Ahh...virgin females are great to work with.

I guess the two traits that stand out in yellow jacket Endlers would be the yellow color and the vertical bars on the body?

According to Google, vertical strips in guppies can result from 2 or 3 genes: Tigrinus (Ti), Zebrinus (Ze)(Winge, 1927), and/or snakeskin body pattern plus bar (SSB+bar)(Phang et al., 1999). (Ze and bar might be the same gene but whatever...). The snakeskin body pattern gene is often carried on Y chromosome but sometimes it is on X chromosome(as in the case of yellow Micariff, metal heads, Medusa, and galaxy ).
Yellow jacket Endlers might start out as either 1. snakeskin male x Endler female or 2. Endler male x Yellow Micariff female.

So assuming no crossover has occurred, if your yellow jacket Endler female was developed from 1.snakeskin male x Endler female, she will be "blank" for body pattern. Her son will have the stripes and dots on the body like the pure strain male you mate her with (hopefully ).

If she came from 2. Endler male x Yellow Micariff female, she will make all her sons show snakeskin pattern on the body. And if the son has 2 copies of the bar gene (it's autosomal recessive), his snakeskin pattern will become vertical stripes making him look more like a yellow jacket Endler. (The inheritance pattern would be similar if your female carries Tigrinus (Ti) since it's an X-linked gene.)

All that from Google... and it's just regarding body pattern. I have no idea about how body color or the caudal/dorsal color will be, not to mention tail pattern, shape and size.

So it's very curious if you did the test cross. I am very interested to know what you get!


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## Shrimpette (Feb 17, 2015)

Wow, thanks for all the info. Very interesting read!

I know that this gal was bred from yellow jackets and probably comes from a long line of them, so she most likely will have dad's yellow jacket genes and pass on the yellow jacket traits to her offspring (if I'm interpreting your information correctly?).

To make things even more fun, I have a single blue (I believe) endler fry that got mixed up in a bag of pygmy cories I picked up at April's. Don't know the parentage or the sex yet though LOL


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## Transposon (Sep 19, 2012)

Uh, my information is mean to say: I don't know if your female has yellow jacket genes or not, but by breeding her with a fish without any yellow jacket genes, hopefully her fry will tell you if she carries yellow jacket genes or not.

&#8230;and that's based on unrealistic assumptions like "the yellow jacket genes move as one unit from parent to offspring", etc&#8230;&#8230;



Shrimpette said:


> bred from yellow jackets and probably comes from a long line of them, so she most likely will have dad's yellow jacket genes


This is assuming that the "yellow jacket genes" are X-linked or autosomal.



Shrimpette said:


> and pass on the yellow jacket traits to her offspring


This is assuming your female is homozygous for the "yellow jacket genes" if the genes are X-linked, or the "yellow jacket genes" are dominant if they are autosomal. 
Only half of her son will be yellow jackets, if your female is heterozygous for the X-linked "yellow jacket genes". Or non of her son will look like yellow jackets while carrying the gene, if the "yellow jacket genes" are autosomal recessive.

Whether these assumptions hold true or not...you can only find out after crossing your female and raising the fry.


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## SeaHorse_Fanatic (Apr 22, 2010)

Transposon said:


> Ahh...virgin females are great to work with!


Amen to that, my brother!:bigsmile:


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## Shrimpette (Feb 17, 2015)

Well I guess we shall see - many months from now lol

Thanks again for all the info Transposon!


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