Any TRUE albino Cichlids, other than Oscars, etc ?

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The vast majority of albino African cichlids, are hybrids, at least those that are related to cichlids found in the Rift Lakes.

Make no mistake I am no geneticist, but I find it fascinating that African cichlids are the only ones that humans can or have attempted to hybridized and create an individual expressing albinism.

It makes my wheels turn and makes me think that when the continents broke apart that individuals that carried this gene were stranded so to speak or isolated from the others that would soon become the Americas.

Now what about Madagascan or Indian cichlids...we've probably never seen one of those expressing albinism.


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Make no mistake I am no geneticist, but I find it fascinating that African cichlids are the only ones that humans can or have attempted to hybridized and create an individual expressing albinism.

It makes my wheels turn and makes me think that when the continents broke apart that individuals that carried this gene were stranded so to speak or isolated from the others that would soon become the Americas.

Now what about Madagascan or Indian cichlids...we've probably never seen one of those expressing albinism.


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Well albinism is one of the more 'easier' mutations to occur, as the production of pigments requires a number of steps and a problem anywhere in the process can completely stop the production of pigments - i.e. mutations in any genetic elements involved can easily produce albinism. Hence why it's relatively common for albinos to occur for basically any animal. Except apparently, american cichlids. o.O

Coincidentally enough, besides the oscar the only other two 'species' (because they're not really species anymore, hence quotation marks) that shows albinism for american cichlids are angelfish and discus, which are both heavily hybridized. XD

No idea what the relationship between hybridization is with albinism, but it does seem to have some sort of correlation. Possibly hybridization will produce individuals that produce slightly different proteins/co-factors/etc. which could disrupt the pathway enough to disallow the individual to produce pigments, hence turning them into albinos.

I am a Geneticist, but my field is not in pigment production tho, so I don't know exactly what goes on there, but I can only imagine it being super complicated and hence something going wrong at the very beginning of the pathway can really mess everything up.
 
I've never seen an albino severum but this is were I saw one. Tho does look to have black eyes http://www.scarletmacawpetshop.com/...-cichlid-(sp)&catid=9:fish-profiles&Itemid=12

They are also mentioned in the book Applied Bioinformatics, Statistics & Economics in Fisheries Research By Ajit Kumar Roy, Niranjan Sarangi
I do not have the book but here is a place mentioned http://books.google.com/books?id=lB...re such a thing as a "albino severum"&f=false

Not actually a severum http://www.cichlid-forum.com/profiles/species.php?id=2446

The last fish is a severum, but a gold one. The same goes for the first link you posted.
 
I'm certainly no Geneticist, but I do have some contacts in Florida that created some of the albino African hybrids many years ago. It's not exactly a trade secret among commercial farms in Florida. With African cichlids, especially all of the popular albino variants from Malawi, it's very easy to cross breed most of the various fish back & forth. Mbuna such as socolofi can easily be crossbred to most other mbuna, which can be crossed with Aulonocara, which can be crossed with most Haps. If one is willing to spend a number of years fixing certain traits to ensure that the fish breed true -voila - latest new albino strain on the market! The only difficult part was beating your competitors to market. :)
 
Mutation of losing dark pigments occured naturally among CAs, notably Amphilophus, Vieja and Cryptoheros species, and turned them into white, pink or OB morph fish. They are not true albino as they retain some pigments and heir eyes are not pink. True albinism will not survive in the wild. Most go through the peeling process so they are dark and camouflage at birth, and gradually lighten up as they mature.

Independent mutation also occured among white and Asian people to lighten up their skin after they migrated out of Africa in the last ice age.
 
That's, again, why I started this thread - to see if there are any others out there - of course they will be very rare, again, that's why I started this thread. Thank you.

We are not talking about color changes here.
 
If you did produce an albino managuense, how would you tell it from an albino motaguense, loiselli, or grammodes for that matter.
Or an albino Vieja from another Vieja. Seems to me a useless exercise in producing a non interesting fish, that said, I also find albinio Africans, and albino plecos just as boring.
 
Your statements really have nothing to do with this thread.

I am looking for records, and photos, of albino SA / CA Cichlids, because they are very rare, and almost non-existent, which is strange, compared to many species having albino examples in this day and age.
 
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