# Dragon genetics question...



## vette91 (May 27, 2011)

I am just looking for some gentics info on dragons. Do the scales breed true?
If i had a dragon hm x dragon hm female would I always get dragons? 
If that traits recessive, thats obvious but if its dominant, it will be a bit more tricky.
I want to start developing my own dragon line and after unsuccessfully breeding petstore fish, I have purchased a dragon HM from aquabid. 
If you can give me any genetic information on the dragon genetics that would be great.
If you are questioning my breeding ability I am almost 100% positive that the male was just too old to breed.


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## trilobite (May 18, 2011)

Bettaterritory has some very good information on genetics. 
Heres a piece taken from an article about dragon genetics


_"What genes determine the "dragon" phenotype?_

_We can clearly see that the unique appearance of the "dragon" clearly affects the iridescent layer. So far several genes have been characterized which affect the iridescent layer, for example the classical iridescent colors steel blue (blbl), turquoise (BlBl) and royal blue (Blbl), metallic or yellow reflecting iridophore (the wildtype variant of the reduced yellow iridophore locus) [18] and the spread iridescence gene (Si) which is responsible for the increase in density and distribution of the iridescent color. _
_In 2007, Joep van Esch of __Bettaterritory.nl__ made some experimental crosses with "dragons" in his fishroom in order to learn more about the heredity behaviour of this trait (see pedigree below). __After crossing a "dragon" to a regular metallic (__BT171007A__) he observed that all offspring had a copper phenotype. Considering the fact that a__ copper phenotype (homozygous metallic steel blue, blbl ++) can only be obtained when the offspring obtains one steel blue (bl) and one metallic (+) allele from each parent [3], this result suggests that both traits may play an important role in the unique appearance of the "dragon" phenotype. Interestingly, the metallic scaling of the offspring seemed more thick and solid than observed in regular metallic fish. This characteristic was also passed on to the offspring when a heterozygous “dragon” was crossed to a heterozygous metallic fish (BT271107). The offspring resulting from crossing two heterozygous metallic sibblings (BT171007B) resulted in homozygous, heterozygous and non-metallic offspring without this unique appearance which was observed before. Off course we have to keep in mind that these findings were purely based on macroscopic observations (with the naked eye). Nevertheless, these crosses show that the “dragon” trait is hereditable and suggests that it behaves quite dominant as it already clearly affects the iridescent layer in heterozygous fish. "_


The rest of the article can be found here
http://www.bettaterritory.nl/BT-AABDragons.htm


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## vette91 (May 27, 2011)

thank you trilobite


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## indjo (Jun 6, 2010)

Dragons breed true. Drg x drg = drg.
And I believe the punnet square is reliable when crossing drg to non drg. But creating specific drg color can be tricky. 

Crossing drg to metallic gives you better chances compared to non metallic. You should get incomplete drg scales in F1 and can breed these geno's to get drg in F2. But I'm not sure how long it would take to produce drg from non drg color.


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## vette91 (May 27, 2011)

Thank you indjo so if i bred drg x non drg all would be drg geno so if i bred the offspring back to parents I would get some "pure" dragons. Correct? 
I might be in non dragon blood to get some new colors into the line and also some better finnage.


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