Short Body Severum

Andy_R

Feeder Fish
MFK Member
Feb 12, 2014
14
0
1
California
Has anyone seen a short bodied severum? My LFS had a tank of about 20 orange/red severums, two of which looked to have a short body morph. Two had unusually long bodies, and the other sixteen looked normal. I went ahead and picked up the shortest body of the batch. I am interested to see how it turns out. I did some searching for pictures of full size sb severums and couldn't find anything. Hopefully that is not because they are not able to reach adulthood, mine seems pretty active so far at about 1".

If I were to breed with a normal bodied super red, or green severum any ideas what to expect?

If the sb gene is recessive, 100% of the offspring should have the sb gene, but it won't be expressed. After a cross back to the sb parent 50% of the offspring should be sb. Does that sound right?


https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B-Wo3TjuiAfeWDFySjlmTl9Dd2s/view?usp=sharing
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B-Wo3TjuiAfeOV9SWmV6amxCbzA/view?usp=sharing
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B-Wo3TjuiAfeMXU0QjhmczY4OHM/view?usp=sharing
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B-Wo3TjuiAfed293Ml9zT1B5Mk0/view?usp=sharing

Thanks!

Andy
 

dreysthename

Gambusia
MFK Member
Apr 30, 2011
700
8
18
NYC
They do look SB.
Never seen that before.
Haven't been in the mix for stuff like super reds etc. For a while but I vaguely remember them being very bad breeders... practically sterile.
Has that changed in the past few years?
 

Andy_R

Feeder Fish
MFK Member
Feb 12, 2014
14
0
1
California
I am not sure about the fertility, but I bought a few greens off a casual breeder who had a few pairs of fertile reds. He didn't seem to have had much trouble getting fry, but I'm just super hopeful mine is fertile lol!
 

ryansmith83

Silver Tier VIP
MFK Member
May 2, 2008
4,080
1,851
1,079
41
Florida
"Short-bodied" fish usually have a deformed spine which causes the short body, and to most people this is considered a cull. There's a chance it can pass that along but again, most people wouldn't select that fish for breeding. Its internal organs are going to be so smashed and compressed that I'll be surprised if it lives into a healthy adulthood.

I have noticed over the past few years that super red severums tend to look shorter bodied than regular severums and I have to wonder if this is from heavy inbreeding/line breeding.
 

elting44

Piranha
MFK Member
Oct 8, 2007
1,168
93
81
38
Salina, KS
Interesting, I think I prefer the normal length severums to the shorter ones. I prefer the natural looking shape. But everyone has different taste.

cheers
 
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