A L98 in the making?

McEve · Post by **McEve** » Fri Jan 28, 2005 9:47 am

This is too weird. One of my males was in a fight with the Alpha, which resulted in all stripes gone on the left side of the fish. Now that the stripes are growing back again, he's got a completely different pattern

He had normal stripes before this. How weird is that?

Sorry about the poor quality pics, they're from the webcam...

Adam · Post by **Adam** » Fri Jan 28, 2005 10:47 am

That certainly is very weird

, a couple of my males have also been in tussles that have resulted in some of their stripes being rubbed off. However when the stripes grew back they were the same as before.

McEve · Post by **McEve** » Fri Jan 28, 2005 11:19 am

The Alpha male lost his stripes in a fight about a year ago, and his stripes grew back like they were before too.

Here's another pic, I'm trying to get a better one, but he keeps insisting on either turning the other side to the camera, or angling himself so that I can't get a clear shot.

It's not entirely healed yet, so maybe it will go back to what it was, but it does look strange.... I know which fish it is (I name them you know

) so there's no doubt it had normal stripes before..

If this turns out to be a permanent thing then it raises some interesting speculations as to how the stripes are developed/decided/determined. How can there be som many things to wonder about in just a little fish?

Tristan · Post by **Tristan** » Fri Jan 28, 2005 11:39 am

Here's another pic, I'm trying to get a better one, but he keeps insisting on either turning the other side to the camera, or angling himself so that I can't get a clear shot.

I think he knows which is his "best" side

Adam · Post by **Adam** » Fri Jan 28, 2005 11:55 am

I've seen something similar in other fish where scales lost through injury/disease do not grow back the same colour or even the same shape. I guess something goes astray in the healing process. I would rather not speculate about genetics having a hand to play in this phenomenon for fear of starting another raging debate like the Bullsnout one. I would say that the patterning of a fish is largely governed by genetics but can also be influenced by other external factors.

McEve · Post by **McEve** » Fri Jan 28, 2005 1:01 pm

Adam wrote:I've seen something similar in other fish where scales lost through injury/disease do not grow back the same colour or even the same shape. I guess something goes astray in the healing process. I would rather not speculate about genetics having a hand to play in this phenomen for fear of starting another raging debate like the Bullsnout one.

Why fear that? I found the discussion very interesting and felt I learned a lot from it

Adam wrote: I would say that the patterning of a fish is largely governed by genetics but can also be influenced by other external factors.

It will be interesting to see how his stripes develops through the healing process, but I too belive damage can lead to typical patterns being altered to atypical. Maybe because the scales that are coded to be black grow in a different angel after an injury? Speculations are fun, and can sometimes lead to an understanding - but then again, at other times to total confusion

And yes, Tristan, I think he's embarassed about his not so good side and doesn't want to show it

McEve · Post by **McEve** » Fri Feb 04, 2005 3:14 pm

The fish is all healed up now, and definately does have a changed pattern

Still camera shy though

Adam · Post by **Adam** » Fri Feb 04, 2005 3:26 pm

Nice picture McEve, that's one funky pattern he has now

. If you don't want him anymore because he's "damaged goods" we can do a swap for one of my males. If you're not decided I'll let you sleep on it, don't delay as the offer is for a limited period only

.

McEve · Post by **McEve** » Fri Feb 04, 2005 3:37 pm

awww shucks... I don't know..... he is desperately trying to get in to the males cave right now, so I don't know......

He used to look like this:

I wonder if I should name it Dolly or something?

If it's a Donald I could always sleep on it

edit

But who gave it a beating like that if it isn't a male, now that's a mystery...

Adam · Post by **Adam** » Fri Feb 04, 2005 3:53 pm

Hey McEve, joking aside.

I wonder if he could be the father of the L098 fry that you have. The reason I say this is that he appears to have a variable gene for pattern which could explain why it grew back differently. Perhaps he has passed this on to his offspring. Just some wild speculation on my part. As I said before my two males stripes have grown back the same as before, well almost ones pattern is still growing back.

Post by **Barbie** » Fri Feb 04, 2005 4:02 pm

It's just scarring, IMO. Horses grow back different colored hair in spots with scars. I think the pattern gets "distorted" as the skin grows back. I wouldn't worry about it, personally.

I'd think that's a female, myself, not a male. I've had the females get badly scuffed by the males after a spawn when they can't get them to get out of the caves. More with the L260, and one quite badly, but yes, it's usually the males that chew each other up, IME. The damage tends to be all on one side with females that won't leave the cave. Males tend to chew both sides of each other.

Barbie

zebra046 · Post by **zebra046** » Sun Feb 06, 2005 12:09 pm

Apparently the zebra stripes are not permanent like your finger print somehow if it gets scrapped off, like when they are fighting they sometimes don't grow back exactly like they used to. the stripes where the hair ends in this male zebra used to have a complete strips going all the way up it got slightly injured from intense competition for breeding caves, I wish I could find the old photograph where he still has its old stripes, by the way this is the same male in Robs web site on sexing the fish it just got older and grew more hairs and is much leaner.