Dalmations

[stucolls]

Hey there, being relatively new to all this I thought Dalmation Mollies were just that but I seem to have come across a few other names.

My male Molly has touches of orange and even some blue to him?

My female who gave birth last night has orange flecks on her is predominantly black as is the male,

the other 2 females are predominantly whte with black spots and not really any orange or blue and the 15 fry.....

14 are clear and 1 has a black tail.......

any suggestions?

 

[dunchp]

Cultivated Mollies that you buy in the shops, and all other species of cultivated livebearers are produced from selective breeding and crossing of various wild species. Cultivated Mollies for instance come from Poecilia sphenops, Poecilia mexicana, Poecilia velifera, Poecilia petenensis. There are also numerous other wild mollies, all Poecilias such as chica and caucana.

Cultivated fish are produced by line breeding and selecting for particular desired traits such as finnage and colouration which ironically are traits which would likely make the fish unsuccessful in then wild. Cultivated species often look very different from their wild relations.

As with people, traits are fixed by genetics and the various traits will depend upon the genetic make up of the mother and the father; some of these traits will be hidden and will only manifest if both mother and father have the hidden (recessive) gene. This means that with the number of young produced, it is unlikely that they will all look the same. Some will look like the mother and some like the father, sometimes they will look different from both and sometimes you will get throwbacks which look like the wild relatives, but are not.

This is why there is a variance in the way the fish look.

 

[theotheragentm]

Calico is what you are looking for to describe the fish I believe. Orange, white, and black.

 

[SnBMeg]

Is a fish considered calico even if the orange or yellow is only noticeable if you're looking very closely?

I used to have a female "dalmation" balloon who had a few tiny flecks of orange. I'm not sure who she bred with, though it could have been my all-black male, but all of her fry are, so far, pure black and white.

Was she technically calico? Or would this just be considered imperfect dalmation coloring?

 

[theotheragentm]

That I can't tell you. To me it doesn't matter. It's a great looking fish.

 

[SnBMeg]

That I can't tell you. To me it doesn't matter. It's a great looking fish.

I was thinking she'd probably be in that gray area. It's not a huge deal to me either, but I am curious to see what others think.

Thanks! I wish I still had her! She, all of my other adults, and half a dozen fry all got cooked when the tank's heater malfunctioned earlier this year. But all of her children survived, and as of three days ago she would have been a grandmother. (And another one of her daughters looks ready to pop any day now!)