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**TheOldSalt** · 10-03-2007, 10:26 AM

Not all mules are sterile, though. Did you know that? I forget the ratio, but it's true. In fact, it's a dirty little secret of horseracing that donkeys and mules can outrun a horse, and for awhile it was an underhanded practice to try to deliberately breed some donkey into a horse line to improve speed. That of course wouldn't have been possible if mules were all sterile, eh? Come to think of it, that sort of thing is what helped eventually lead to the concept of thoroughbreeding; everyone wanted a level playing field with no funny business, and selective breeding made for mighty fine horses anyway.

The crossing of guppies and gambusias is part of the work done by the early pioneers who plied their craft long before the grand old masters came onto the scene. That sort of thing was actually not uncommon in those days. Hanel, Sternke and others got ahold of some later generations of these hybrids and mixed them in with their own lines. They may not have even known what they had at the time, simply using some nice big fish they found from some other guys. At any rate, it's true, although the extent of the truth is certainly an issue of long debate. I can also tell you that I have personally crossed guppies and gambusias myself, hence my ability to describe how they look and the difficulties involved. The fish I got were significantly larger than the pure guppies, but it was apparent that the little mutants were freaks anyway, and the size increase came at a great cost. Those fish eventually bred, but their fecundity was drastically lower than normal. The only good thing that came from them was the straightening out if a guppy line which had gone bad, resulting in curved spines in all specimens. Since they were "trash" anyway, I continued the experiment with those so as to not ruin good fish. To my surprise the scoliosis vanished in the next generation, and while I eventually gave up and scrapped the whole lineset, the bent spines stayed gone for about 6 more generations. I never did otherwise get any decent-looking guppies again from them, although they were at least finally looking like guppies again by the end.

10-03-2007, 10:26 AM	#16
TheOldSalt Darth Ichthyos Join Date: Jan 2005 Posts: 4,253	Not all mules are sterile, though. Did you know that? I forget the ratio, but it's true. In fact, it's a dirty little secret of horseracing that donkeys and mules can outrun a horse, and for awhile it was an underhanded practice to try to deliberately breed some donkey into a horse line to improve speed. That of course wouldn't have been possible if mules were all sterile, eh? Come to think of it, that sort of thing is what helped eventually lead to the concept of thoroughbreeding; everyone wanted a level playing field with no funny business, and selective breeding made for mighty fine horses anyway. The crossing of guppies and gambusias is part of the work done by the early pioneers who plied their craft long before the grand old masters came onto the scene. That sort of thing was actually not uncommon in those days. Hanel, Sternke and others got ahold of some later generations of these hybrids and mixed them in with their own lines. They may not have even known what they had at the time, simply using some nice big fish they found from some other guys. At any rate, it's true, although the extent of the truth is certainly an issue of long debate. I can also tell you that I have personally crossed guppies and gambusias myself, hence my ability to describe how they look and the difficulties involved. The fish I got were significantly larger than the pure guppies, but it was apparent that the little mutants were freaks anyway, and the size increase came at a great cost. Those fish eventually bred, but their fecundity was drastically lower than normal. The only good thing that came from them was the straightening out if a guppy line which had gone bad, resulting in curved spines in all specimens. Since they were "trash" anyway, I continued the experiment with those so as to not ruin good fish. To my surprise the scoliosis vanished in the next generation, and while I eventually gave up and scrapped the whole lineset, the bent spines stayed gone for about 6 more generations. I never did otherwise get any decent-looking guppies again from them, although they were at least finally looking like guppies again by the end.