I started breeding AZ guppies in December of 1999. Tail patterns made no sense to me until March of 2000. I had hundreds of strains on file with names that included such descriptive words as variegated, stippled, small spotted, heavily ticked and tricolor. I had even named two albino strains "Snow Leopard" and "Snow Tiger" still not perceiving the obvious. Things had gotten so out of hand that I had begun to just number the phenotypes. Dreaming up names was harder to do than breed the darn guppies. When I asked my wife to help out with a name for a strain her reply became, "You bred it, you name it". She would then pat me on the head and mutter something that sounded like "what a weird little old man…"
I had a .fsh file containing several hundred males that I had matured to 270+ days for the purpose of taking pics for Izzy's web site. I started placing groups of males from this file into a viewing tank and separating the obvious tail patterns (clear and clear multi) into separate .fsh files. Next I removed all the leopards (the white rectangle in the dorsal made this easy). It was at about this stage of the project that I had an epiphany and saw the obvious for the first time. Shouting, "Eureka, by George I think I've got it" at the monitor I was then able to see just what I had been looking at for three months. I continued to separate phenotypes into separate .fsh files now labeled by only tail pattern; clear, clear multi, grass, grass multi, tiger, tiger multi, leopard and leopard multi. I had a few males left over that did not fit into any of these groups. These later became snakeskin's, a tail pattern I had occasionally seen but never seen (you know what I mean?). All of my strains fit nicely into these ten tail pattern classifications. Life was
simplified. AZ was fun. My wife was amused. (I've got to get a life!)
Lets take a closer look at the ten tail patterns AZ guppies display.
CLEAR
The clear tail pattern is simple. It ain't got no dots, lines or squiggles. Guppies with clear tail patterns do exhibit a wide range of overlays, which contribute to their intensity and brightness. Melanin (black pigmentation) may also be present which can influence how a color is rendered.
CLEAR MULTI
The clear multi phenotype is the phenotype we see most often in F1 and F2 generations when we out-cross two non-related strains such as a red tail, tuxedo or albino. Many of these guppies are absolutely gorgeous. The caudal crescents they show off can include some of AZ's most brilliant colors.
GRASS
Think of pepper on eggs. You will see small spots scattered over the tail. The grass pattern is always accompanied with some degree of overlay.
GRASS MULTI
I refer to the grass patterned tail pattern accompanied by the caudal crescent as grass multi. As with the clear multi, the caudal crescent often includes some very intense, beautiful colors.
Take a look at the dorsal fins in both the grass and grass multi examples shown here. This pattern is always evident in the grass phenotypes.
TIGER
The tiger tail pattern is the easiest tail pattern to recognize, even in young males. There is a downward stripe that is always evident in the tail fin.
TIGER MULTI
The tiger tail pattern retains the characteristic tiger stripe in the pattern and the caudal crescent color is also incorporated into the tail pattern. The dorsal fin often displays several colors in the tiger multi phenotype.
LEOPARD
If you see a white rectangle at the base of the dorsal fin you are looking at a guppy with a tail pattern I refer to as the leopard tail pattern. (Hey, how many pictorial words can you come up with that apply to a reticulated pattern in a guppy's tail?)
The leopard tail pattern is often far more intensely colored that all other tail patterns. The colors are very vivid and can appear to be especially bright even through an overlay.
LEOPARD MULTI
Adding the caudal crescent color to the leopard tail pattern results in what I label the "leopard multi" phenotype.
SNAKESKIN
Once upon a time, while swimming in the red tail gene pool, there appeared before me one deep cranberry guy whose fins, including his dorsal, displayed a very striking though subtle reticulated pattern in black. Quick as a wink I removed "Mr. Squiggles" and his sisters to their own file and set about investigating what he was hiding in his genes. His phenotype was soon stabilized and named "snakeskin". ("Lace" might have been more appropriate but snakeskin was the name applied.)
Subsequent work with this phenotype indicates that the pattern is recessive to anything else. To date, I have had more success working with this pattern utilizing albino strains.
SNAKESKIN MULTI
Add a caudal crescent to the snakeskin pattern and you have what I refer to as the snakeskin multi. I have been more successful producing the snakeskin multi phenotype in albino strains. So far, to date and for the time being.
With the arrival of FisherMan I was able to see that what I called "Snakeskin" was nothing more than an optical illusion. The pattern is plain old tiger but if the overlaying color is strong enough the absence of lighter pigment causes the tiger pattern to appear to be more evenly distributed over the tail.
ADDITIONAL TAIL PATTERNS
You mean there are more? Well, that depends on your point of view. I keep returning to the original phenotypes one sees in the yellow mosaic and Kcobra .fsh files. The tail pattern in those guys seems to disappear within a generation or so, morphing into tiger or leopard. I have started to work with the original leopard pattern and for the present refer to it as lace (I have run out of reticulated pattern words).
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