Ever since I picked up my female "Codom Hypo" marcianus at the 2008 Daytona Expo, I've been scratching my head over my breeding results. the first spring, I mated her to a wild-caught local male, and got two small litters of 6 and 5-all entirely normal. Of course from a codom morph, I'd have expected at least some of those to be Hypos. Oh well, I chalked it up to bad luck (of which I've had plenty over the years)....

Anyway, I held back one of the nicer-looking normal males that season and the next spring mated him back to his mother. As a result, she dropped two litters, each of which included several hypos, in approximately the expected ratio to normals. In a way, this made me feel better. But I got to thinking: If the hypo were in fact a "simple recessive " morph (rather than codom), I'd have about the same breeding results from breeding Hypo to het as if I'd bred Codom hypo to normal (i.e. 50% Hypo).

So I decided on a test. I held back two normal-appearing females from those litters and this season bred them to the normal male holdback from the previous litters. Below are pics of the 1.2 "normal" breeders and the resulting offspring:





The results for both litters were 6 Hypos and 14 normals. All from three marcianus of entirely normal appearance. I can naught but conclude that the "Codom Hypo" gene is in fact simple recessive.

Thoughts?