29/03/2023
💯 The most important aspect of responsible breeding- knowing your lines, keeping good records, and taking action when you need to w**d out the bad ones. If you want to get into breeding axolotls, you need to understand how shallow the gene pool is and you must be committed to culling the bad ones. It's not an easy job, but its extremely important to the future of the species. Great article by Lloyd Strohl.
I know some people won’t like hearing this, but….
ALL HYPOMELANISTICS CURRENLTY ON THE MARKET ARE CLOSELY RELATED!
I hope I stated that clearly enough.
I have been contacted several times over the last few months by breeders (and sorta-breeders) who want unrelated hypomelanistics. They have the best of intentions, and are trying to avoid inbreeding as much as possible (which is sincerely appreciated). When I explain to them that any two hypos are related within three generations, and most likely two, they often just look elsewhere. The problem is that there is NO ELSEWHERE yet.
Hypomelanistics produced in the last three years were the result of very close inbreeding, as in sibling pairings or parent-offspring pairings. Sibling pairings are more likely, as we know that many casual breeders are not very cautious or well informed about the sources of their animals. At BEST, any hypo clutches produced in the last two years are the result of first-cousin inbreeding (or closer), as I suspect my two clutches are. I have it from more than one other breeder that they got their first hypos after pairing animals for which they have absolutely no genetic information, ie; from a pet shop or the guy down the road with an accidental clutch..
Here’s the problem:
Best evidence suggests that the gene for hypomelanism has existed for, AT MOST, seven or eight years. The mutation likely occurred around 2015. Almost all hypos currently in the pet trade can be traced back to animals produced recently by Roofus Aquatics, with a few other, scattered sources that are harder to confirm (like me). The other sources are harder to confirm because hypos produced before 2020 were generally not recognized as such. I, for example, embarrassingly, produced a couple of clutches with “light melanoid coppers” and “light coppers” in 2018 without realizing what I had, and distributed those all over the country.
I'll put a link to the first posting when I noticed something odd about the “light coppers” in September of 2017 in the comments.
This means that the mutation occurred in an animal at least one generation prior to that, and since my records indicate that the mating that produced my first hypos were unrelated through, at minimum, two generations, the mutation must have occurred no later than 2015. Unfortunately, I have absolutely no idea who was the original source of the male copper from that pairing, and no one I have talked to has any reliable records prior to that, so there is no way to trace the source any further back.
It doesn’t really matter, though: My het-hypo coppers in that first pairing must have shared the same grandparent. Both inherited the same recessive mutation from that common ancestor.
So what should we be doing?
(1) The important thing to do now is to first outbreed your hypos to non-hypomelanistic animals that you KNOW to be as unrelated as possible. That is the step I started last year. I was lucky to have animals from those “light coppers”, so I know they are at least two generations away from hypos obtained from other sources last year.
This has the advantage of producing new genetic combinations with the hypo gene that may be very interesting. Have any breeders considered what happens when you select one of the exceptionally yellow hypos to blend into your gold albinos? How light will a hypo axanthic be? The effect of the hypo gene makes selection for these polygenic traits much easier than it has been in the past!
(2) Ideally, do that one more time, producing a generation of animals with two different genetic lines that carry the hypo gene, but are unrelated through two generations.
(3) In the third generation you can then pair animals from those two genetic lines, producing healthy hypos that are at least as unrelated as the vast majority of axolotls in our domestic stocks.
(4) Along the way, cull or retire any animals that produce offspring with undesirable traits, and CULL those undesirable offspring AND SIBLINGS. Don’t sell them or give them to friends. That is a CRITICAL step in reducing the damage done by inbreeding. If you aren’t willing to do, or capable of doing that don’t breed axolotls (or anything else).
Yes, that is going to take 5-7 years. If you aren’t willing to take the time you may as well keep pretending that you’re doing the right thing by getting your hypos from different breeders (who got theirs from the same very small pool of people) and pretending they aren’t siblings or first cousins.
Am I saying that no one should be producing hypomelanistics? NO. THAT IS NOT WHAT I’m SAYING. Every new mutation is selectively in**ed by breeders who want to produce more. As long as the breeder behaves responsibly, is honest with customers about their pairings, and (ESPECIALLY IMPORTANT) follows step #4 religiously, all is well.
If we are careful and responsible in our breeding practices we will have healthy, beautiful hypos for all in the years to come.
