Cayenne Conundrum

So I have a beautiful 2015 male Cayenne Fire from Don Soderberg. I believed he was homozygous Red Factor, but the development of some of his offspring this year have me honestly questioning that. This is Tango from a fairly recent shoot, though the editing is a little on the dark side:



He's pretty intense, and I expect his color to further saturate as he ages. His first clutch with a Buf Tessera het Amel looked primarily RF, but a handful have not developed much in the way of ground color. Some were more obvious than others, particularly the two Bufs, the Amel Tesseras, and the one female Tessera. All have intense ground color and have gained more as they've aged. Similarly the ttwo Orange Tesseras I've sold have reportedly intensified in color as well. And then I have this little male...



...who does not look even remotely RF to me. :shrugs: Could Tango only have a single copy of RF? Compare this photo of him at 29g with the sole surviver of his other '17 clutch below, a very obviously RF Amel at a mere 17g.




The dam of the above female was from a very colorful line of Hypo Lavenders...perhaps the dam is single-expression RF and the juvenile above is homozygous like her sire? Or could there be some other explanation for the pale background and soft yellowy orange of my weirdo Orange Tessera male?

I will need to get new photos of the rest of the first clutch soon, but every other hatchling looks as though it could reasonably be single-expression RF, with the other Buf Amels seeming to have more intense red-orange saddle markings than the above male.

Tango . . .

Had you not specified from whom you acquired Tango, I'd say it looks like a homozygote RF mutant (aka: Cayenne Fire). More often than not, Visual hets and homogygotes are easily distinguished via their color at a young age, but there are exceptions. That said, if progeny of Tango are not satisfying visual standard distinction between Vis Het and Homo, Tango COULD be a Visual Het. If the latter, Tango is an amazingly red corn. Historically, the red in these mutants continue to saturate for at least six years.

SODERBERGD said:

Had you not specified from whom you acquired Tango, I'd say it looks like a homozygote RF mutant (aka: Cayenne Fire). More often than not, Visual hets and homogygotes are easily distinguished via their color at a young age, but there are exceptions. That said, if progeny of Tango are not satisfying visual standard distinction between Vis Het and Homo, Tango COULD be a Visual Het. If the latter, Tango is an amazingly red corn. Historically, the red in these mutants continue to saturate for at least six years.

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From photos of your visual het RF corns, I have always assumed he was homozygous, but then I am stunned at my above female RF Amel who by all accounts SHOULD be a visual het. Though her dam was colorful (pictured below), I do not necessarily think she is anywhere near pink enough to be RF. I would have to pull the others into natural lighting (my lamp in the snake room is a very unfortunate shade of yellow) to compare them accurately at the moment, but I will try to get more actual studio photos in the coming weeks. You of all people must be familiar with how time consuming that can be lol. The weather has gotten cold enough, most of them are not going anywhere until probably March at the earliest anyway.

Coral Coloration . . .

The Lavender you just showed was a very common color for that morph many years ago, but AFAIK nobody ever determined that the coral colors were attributed to a red-modifying gene mutation?

SODERBERGD said:

The Lavender you just showed was a very common color for that morph many years ago, but AFAIK nobody ever determined that the coral colors were attributed to a red-modifying gene mutation?

Click to expand...

The only ones I can think of that were even suggested to possibly have a red modifier were Donovan's Larkspur line. They were impressively pink. Crossing Cayenne Fire to Hypo Lavender was my first step towards recreating (and perhaps improving on) this look.



The Hypo Lavender above is from Stephen Sharp in the UK. Her male clutchmates do have fantastic coloration, but nothing necessarily requiring any known red modifying mutation. This is the only photo I have currently, though it's not very well lit.



Her offspring with another nicely colored Hypo Lavender were nice, but again, nothing particularly extraordinary. I expect my '16 holdback to look much like her dam in another couple of years.

Nice

I didn't mean to imply it's not possible, but the one you showed is identical to old-school Lavenders (especially the Hypo Lavenders of that era). That one of Donovan's is shockingly beautiful.