Lightning maroon clownfish have spawned, hatched, and already the first little bits of banding in the F1 generation show super promising aberrations of banding which will have the clownfish breeders very excited. Even though the maroon lighting maroon clownfish was paired with a related Premnas biaculeatus from Papua New Guinea, we don’t think anyone really expected to see expressions of the lightning pattern in the first generation of the lightning maroon’s offspring.
All observers of the lightning maroon project who know anything about mendelian genetics realistically thought that we might see some traces of the lightning pattern in the second, F2 generation of lightning maroon clownfish once they were back-crossed with each other a bit. However, for Matt to observe the lightning pattern in his very first batch of offspring from a half-cross of lightning maroon but full cross of PNG maroons clownfish must be very encouraging, and well worth the long journey it has been to get to this point.
Matt’s baby lightning maroon clownfish are still super young, not even a month old since hatching so they still have a lot of room to grow. However, the picture above shows one of the uniquely patterned lightning maroon offspring with a normally banded maroon clownfish below, showing a great disparity in pattern between siblings in this first single clutch. Can you imagine how many more surprises await us once the Lightning Maroon’s offspring grow up and there are lots and lots of them? We can’t wait.
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