Breeding out Physical Traits?

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Miles

Miles

Stingray King
MFK Member
Jul 2, 2005
5,547
162
120
Spokane, WA
As most of you know, I manage a Pet Store and I hear all sorts of crap from time to time..

So a guy the other day was telling me this story about a man in Seattle, who bred a 'tail-less rat'.. It took him about 20 generations of basically mutilating the animal, He said he would removed the tail with a soldering iron when they were young.. but eventually the trait stuck and the rats begun to produce tail-less rats. (They were apparently a big hit in the small animal community?.. a wobbly rat is cute?)

Anyways... before people start accusing me of mutilating rays..

I have a few retics with snubbed tails (lost the point, now it's bladed).. and I have seen alot of damaged tails like this before. (seems pretty common).

Now theoretically, I could probably manually remove the extended portions of the tails without killing the rays.. Not saying that I WOULD do such a thing, but it theoretically could happen (I am not going to, don't worry).. or just have an abundant collection of ready-to-breed short-tailed retics..

It would also take 20 years to breed out that many generations..

but..

Do you think it would be possible to breed a short-tailed (retic) ray?


Discuss.. (argue, flame, anger, hahaha turmoil!)
 
Um, that thing about the rats is complete bs because he only physically removed the tails, it's not like it occurred naturally. It would have to be on a genetic basis if he were to truly be able to breed tail-less rats. That's like saying giraffes got long necks because a long time ago, a horse wanted to reach food at the top of a tree and kept stretching his neck so much that it became permanent and he spread it to his kids. It's like saying, if you pluck all of the feathers off of a chicken and bred it, the chicks would be featherless.

To breed a short tailed ray, you would have to do it by finding the rays with the shortest tails, tails that are short not due to physical mishaps when in the care of their owners, but due to some genetic reasons. Then you keep breeding these together, line breeding, to get the traits that you want. It's been done throughout history, everywhere you look: cows, dogs, cats, chickens, fish, etc etc.

Sorry if I was a bit confusing, lol.
 
I couldn't agree more. There's no way a guy was able to breed tail-less rats by cutting their tails off. It would be as dumb as saying you could pluck and chicken and even it's chicks would be bald.
 
sounds rediculous to me too lol like a girl getting implants and her children having them too. IMO it would have to be genetic. probably the people that keep their rays in a 55 gal would possibly be able to breed short tailed minature retics due to the adaptation that they would have to adapt to a smaller living condition but i still dont see that happening since it would probably take hundreds even thousands of years just like out freshwater rays that have once been salt water. now breeding a batman ray might work to further breed out the traits of the bat man look :headbang2
 
this is one of the first things we learn in beginning biology. Traits acquired during one's lifetime are NOT passed on. Only your genes are. Unless chopping off rats' tails affected their DNA (which it didn't), it wouldn't happen. If I become blind during an accident, my child will not become blind. If I was born blind because of a genetic defect, than my child might be born blind because it's predetermined in his genes
 
The idea that traits acquired during the lifetime of an organism could be passed on to offspring was the basis of Lamarck's early theory of evolution. This theory has been incontrovertibly proven to be rubbish, which is why Darwin, not Lamarck, is credited with being the first to propose a theory of evolution. Unfortunately, even hundreds of years after its publication and vindication, very few people have a good understanding of the fundamentals of what evolution 'is' and 'isn't'. But that's an entirely different subject. To sum up, selective breeding can only be accomplished by selecting for mutations that already exist within an animal's genetic background, not by physically modifying an organism. Which is why after hundreds of years of certain dog breeds having their tails and/or ears cropped, we have yet to see puppies with shorter ears or tails being born to those dogs. Hope that helps.
 
:popcorn:
 
yea total BS.... i love the pet store stories....
 
Miles, I have to ask, do you have an insane amount of free time? You always seem to come up with the most interesting topics. Its like "Deep Thougths.......with Miles Bergsma"
 
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