The results of the test crosses I set up two months ago are starting to color up. It is always an exciting time because there are always surprises, and there are always fresh insights into guppy mysteries offered up. An example is the guppy above. It was not until I photographed this guppy and cropped the picture when I realized that it was almost identical to the Bader snakeskin sport I have written about here:

http://guppydesigner.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=393&Itemid=229

And here is a picture of the sport (the sport is the guppy below the regular Bader snakeskin phenotype): 

This was an unexpected result of the test cross. The fact the F1 male of the cross has the same basic phenotype of the sport tells me that the sport is probably the result of a "loss" of the snakeskin gene. Since a mutation is exceedingly rare, it has to have been a crossover event. But it the snakeskin gene had merely crossed over from the X to the Y chromosome, then I should not have seen a change in the snakeskin phenotype. Sometimes I think guppy genetics is like a puzzle. Sometimes you find two pieces that fit together but you cannot make out the shape so you do not know where the piece fits into the big picture.

I guess I will just have to continue putting the pieces together until I get the whole picture...

Ronan Boutot's new book on guppies finally arrived on my doorstep (literally), all the way from France. It is published under the Animalia Editions series "L'Aquariophile Practique." There is no good translation in English, but I'll try: "Practical Aquarist."

The book came with a handwritten dedication Ronan lifted from our correspondence, as Ronan is a great guppy friend. It's something I wrote to Ronan in an email last year. I said, "Surely you are the craziest guppy color detective in the world. And I am glad you are, because I would hate for that honor to be bestowed on me." Ronan took it as a great compliment, as he should. After all he was the guy seven years ago who phoned me at 3 a.m. in the morning from Paris, excited about some obscure insight into guppy color. I had some explaining to do in the morning to my groggy wife.

So the book is very appropriately called "Guppy passion." The subtitle is "From the basics to competition." And that is exactly what he has done. The book is 80 pages from on how to get started, through feeding and maintenance, genetics and selecting breeders for their conformance to show standards. He includes both European and North American standards in the book, so it is a book suitable for both European and North American audiences.

The book has great pictures of guppies, mostly according to the European standard, and excellent illustrations to support the more technical areas. One of those areas is the chromatophores, the color cells of guppies. There are only two and half pages devoted to chromatophores, and I know Ronan could have written a whole book on the subject. But the book series it is published under is meant to provide practical information for a wide range of aquarists, and he had to touch on almost all the topics germaine to serious guppy hobbyists.

I think the book is extremely valuable. As far as I know there are no French language books specific to guppies of this calibre anywhere, at least not in print. So we all owe a debt of thanks to Ronan for writing it, as I am sure it will make some money for the publisher and very little for the author. (I speak from experience!) The book is obviously a labour of love and I hope he infects other Francophiles with his form of guppy passion. It will bring a lot of bright minds into the hobby.

Good job Ronan. I will treasure this book.

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