Working with the cobras can make you crazy. That said, let's see what the next pair gives us to explore. I decided to stay with the same male (M25) but chose another female (F13) to pair with M25 to produce the F1 for this illustration of working the cobra gene pool.
M25 and F13 produced this batch of males in their F1 fry.
On, no! Four completely different males. We have silver tiger, silver leopard, leopard multi pumpkin and the beautiful tiger multi quad cobra. Not a good sign at all. (Left to my own devices I would delete this unholy batch of devil guppies from my hard drive and go wash the car.)
What is so bad about these guys? Four phenotypes in an F1 indicate that both parents are individuals heterozygous not only for tail pattern but tail color. The quad male (four colors can be found in his tail fin) also tells me that AZ has thrown in all of the colors he represents into this gene pool. This one phenotype will be responsible for multiple colors appearing for many generation to come. (This is the voice of experience. I'm not just making this stuff up.) To isolate just one tail color and pattern will involve making many sibling crosses, multiple searches for the "right sister", and chasing many false leads before we are able to stabilize just one of the many possible phenotypes this F1 generation will offer to us in future generations.
If you think back to the out-crosses we have made up to now, you will remember that I am always hoping that all the F1 males will look alike. This lets me know that I have brought only two sets of homozygous genes to the genetic mixing bowl. Seeing four phenotypes in this F1 generation tells me that we have a real mess on our hands. Oh, well, let's get started and see what we can learn from this experience.
If we choose one of the silver guys the chase will quickly end. Silver is dominant to most (if not all) other colors and can usually be easily stabilized (this is not etched in stone, but a good rule of thumb). However, silver is a color that hides other colors (this is very important when working with albino silver strains). If I were to fix a strain of silver tigers or leopards from this F1 all the other colors could still be present though unexpressed. The phenotype would be stabilized but when used in future out-crosses all the hidden colors could resurface. (This is a lesson I have learned the hard way, believe me.) If these guys were in a F1 generation that had only one other color, say yellow, I could stabilize the phenotype but file the strain as "silver out of yellow stock" (again, very important when working with albino silver strains). The strain would then offer the probability that the only color it would bring to a future out-cross would be yellow. A strain of silver tigers or leopards "out of quad stock" would be useless to us later. Let's
not go there.
We already have a cobra leopard strain stabilized and filed away. That leaves the quad males to check out. We might get lucky, who knows? (HA!) We will have to mate one of the tiger multi quads with most of his sisters to see what the gene pool might offer. Let's pick the best quad male and see what happens.
Here are the results of mating the quad male with five of his sisters.
Batch F2a
Yellow tiger, yellow leopard, and quads are seen in this batch.
Batch F2b
Whoa! Dark orange leopards and electric blue leopard multi are in this batch.
Batch F2c
Here we have leopard gold, leopard yellow, leopard multi pumpkin and tiger multi blue males. (The tiger multi blue looks promising. We may go back to this batch later and see if we can isolate his phenotype.)
Batch F2d
AZ did not give us enough males to really see what is in this batch. However, we do not see the leopard tail pattern in this batch. Looks like the best pick so far.
Batch F2e
What a group we have here. Three shades of tigers, one leopard yellow and a tiger multi quad.
Let's select the F2d batch and see what those guys and dolls produce.
Here are the results of mating one of the tiger multi quads with three of his sisters.
Batch F3a
Oh, darn. We have a leopard in this batch.
Batch F3b
We still have leopards, but that tiger multi blue is still catching my eye.
Batch F3c
Two colors of tiger, two colors of tiger multi and four tiger multi quads are exhibited in this batch. Since we see no leopards in this batch and we want to stabilize a tiger or tiger multi phenotype, let's chose this batch to produce the F4 generations. (Note that I say generations, not generation. When working with cobras, you gotta kiss a lotta frogs to find Prince and Princess guppy. We will probably mate over sixty pairs and produce over 800 fry in our search for just one stabilized strain out of this group! Yep, I'll delete every one of them when all is said and done.)
The first pair selected produced this group of males, which I selected as the F4.
It won't get much better than this. Let's go with this batch to produce the F5 generation. (I did check out six other females, but I am getting quite tired of taking all these pics. But, what use is a "show and tell" if you have nothing to show?)
Here are three of the broods produced by the best quad male and three of his sisters.
Batch F5a
See I told you this would be a wild goose chase. However, the turquoise male is very pretty. However, since every dad for five generations has been a tiger multi quad, chasing another phenotype at this stage of the game is not a wise move.
Batch F5b
Boy, oh boy. The gang's all here.
Batch F5c
These guys are sure pretty, but, at the F5 generation, this is not a mix I want to see.
In the interest of taking this gene chase to some conclusion, I selected a tiger quad male from the F5c and mated him with three of his sisters. Here are the males produced in F6c.
Three tiger multi quads and one tiger multi blue males are produced in this batch. However, since the results of the F6a and F6b were much more varied, I think we need to consider this chase futile. (If the Borg have assimilated my AZ software, that ought to stop the Borg in mid-warp!)
It took four sisters to finally produce these F7d males
Bull funky. We are not making any progress with this group at all. One more time just for fun.
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