Unfortunately my Cylisticus convexus "Pied" have all died off, the cage dried out and they all died. There's really no one to blame but me, as I forgot to check on their cage last week, but I've neglected them longer without the cage drying out, so I don't know why the cage dried out so fast.
It's been a year since I isolated them and I still was not getting any pied mancae, just normal ones, so the adults probably would have died of old age and still not give me a new generation of pieds if the cage hadn't dried out. Still, it sucks knowing they all died out because of me, and who knows, next month they could have given birth to a whole bunch of pied babies! :(
My original colony has not put out any more pied individuals, so this color morph may be forever lost, and as far as I know the one person I sold some to has also not gotten his pieds to produce pied mancae.
Hisserdude, you do understand how genetics work, correct? It's possible for a generation to carry a trait without them possessing the trait themselves. The offspring of the pied morphs can still pass on the pied trait, and when the correct combination of alleles are present in a brood, the pied trait will show up again. The stock you've sold to other people could still be carrying the pied trait. This is assuming the trait is heritable, of course.
ReplyDeleteActually I don't really know much about genetics at all, so thanks for the info! I think I may have taken a few of my normal looking offspring from the pied C.convexus and put them in with my original colony, so perhaps the color morph will show up again one day! Hopefully the one guy I sent them to has success isolating them, would really be a shame to lose this color morph for good...
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