Top Ten Guppy Breeders
It's the first day of the first month of a new decade (January 1,2010), and like writers for news programs and newspapers or magazines, I am thinking about the top ten contributors to our knowledge of guppy genetics.
It would be easy for me to name off the top scientists who have contributed so much to our understanding of guppy genetics, beginning with O. Winge. But I have done that already in my "Theory and Practice of Guppy Breeding" book. I devote an entire chapter on Winge's 1927 "eighteen genes" paper where he lays the foundation the entire study of guppy genetics.
No, I want to pay tribute to the guppy hobbyists who have contributed the most to our knowledge of guppy genetics. These are the breeders who have blazed the path of knowledge and generously shared that knowledge with the rest of us.
What started me down this memory lane was an article I wrote for the books site today. I had discovered a "Metal Pingu" among one of the drops that resulted from an out cross.
Metal Pingu male.
I instantly thought of the great Yoshiki Tsutsui who originally named and described the Metal Pingu. Unfortunately he died a few years ago. Tsutsui taught me to see guppies in a way that has contributed immensely to my enjoyment of this little fish. He combines a deep understanding of guppy genetics with an artist's appreciation of their beauty. And he wrote some great books and great articles in magazines and on the web that opened the eyes and minds of many Japanese breeders to the guppy as both an intellectual challenge as well as a sensual pleasure. I am still exploring what he wrote about the interactions between the platinum, snakeskin and Stoerzbach genes in my own breeding experiments. When I discovered the Metal Pingu in my tanks I thought "Tsutsui was here before me and gave me the words to describe this unique phenotype." That is the kind of hobbyist guppy geneticist that I want to pay tribute to in this article.
Another hobbyist who has contributed immensely to our understanding of the complex dance of guppy color genes is Luke Roebuck. Luke is rather interesting because he is a full-fledged international guppy judge, a purveyor of fine guppies, a fancy guppy farmer and an amateur guppy genetics hobbyist. I think the guppies I have got from him over the years have a distinct style and look which is testimony to his selective breeding methods. He is the only breeder I have purchased guppies from that has given me useful background knowledge on the guppies he sells, including their genetics. A lot of the time his explanations of the biology and genetics of guppies is expressed in what appears to be a private language that is difficult to decipher but his keen eye and the breeding knowledge he has acquired from maintaining a fish room with a couple of hundred tanks is an invaluable source for my continuing research. I am able to translate his insights into a more formal language of genetics. That is testimony to his keen eye and deep knowledge. I thank him for so generously sharing his knowledge.
The breeder Claus Osche shares something with the aforementioned breeders that I think is indispensable. He has a passionate interest in what makes guppy color and pattern tick. Claus has been around the hobby since being a young man and is a virtual encyclopaedia of the history and genetics of guppies. He has taught me a lot about European guppies, and I am thankful for that because it has been difficult for me to get my hands on the many wonderful mutations that Germans and East Europeans have isolated and manipulated. I think the Germans and Japanese share a common fascination for the genetics of color. If I was a young man I might even have tried to slowly absorb these two languages just to dip into the vast pool of knowledge they have built up about the consequences of crossing specific strains of guppies.
Jim Alderson is on my list, despite the fact he publicly abstains from the science of guppy genetics, claiming to merely note down breeding patterns. He told me he learned certain arcane breeding formulas from old time guppy breeders and merely applies them. I do not believe him. I sat in a lecture he once gave on Mendelian genetics that curiously ended in a renunciation of crossing guppies other than those he found to be compatible in terms of maintaining an officially prescribed IFGA class. I have learned a lot from Dr. Alderson (he is a professor of veterinarian science) despite his circumspection and his unbending loyalty to the IFGA guppy standard (he uses the term "guppy champion" in his email address). I recently read an article on a British guppy site that begins with his standard disclaimer about formal guppy genetics and then goes on to describe how show quality body size and fin shape and size is inherited. Really good and reliable information that can easily be analyzed and encoded in formal genetics.
Certainly no list of the world's leading sources of guppy hobbyist genetics knowledge would be incomplete without Gernot Kaden, the East German guppy seller who maintains a website where guppy breeders share guppy genetics knowledge. Gernot is also a good source for the history of the hobby in Eastern Europe. Unfortunately he speaks no English so there is a natural barrier between him and the rest of the world, but I often hear of his contributions through English speaking Germans and others. He is another case where a large fish room and a part time business selling fancy guppies seems to be a natural laboratory for the study of guppy genetics, and like the others on this list he likes to share his knowledge.
Another excellent source for guppy genetics information has been Junichi Ito in Japan. A lot of contemporary information from Japanese breeders has dripped through despite the fact Junichi knows no English and I know no Japanese. The online translator thoroughly mangles text I have tried to eke from Junichi's correspondence and from other sources on the Internet. He has a deep curiosity about the color genetics of the guppy and is a good and reliable source.
Ronan Boutot in France once woke me up in the morning at 3 a.m., calling from his home in Paris, France. He was very excited about an idea he had about guppy color. I think he is one of a small handful of guppy breeders that I have shared a passionate interest in guppy color cell biology with...despite the fact that I believe the future of guppy genetics depends on a better and more thorough knowledge of how color cells develop and what genes influence their structure and pigment production. Much learning comes from passionate debate and discussion and that certainly is true of my conversations with Ronan.
Another breeder that is true about is my friend Oscar Inostroza, who kind of makes up for the fact that my other fellow Canadian citizens seem to have little interest in guppies. I believe Oscar will eventually emerge as one of the most knowledgeable of guppy hobbyist geneticists because he brings his considerable computer programming knowledge to the study of guppy genetics. Up to now most people have thought about color genes as driving guppy color hardware, the color patterns that we think we see with our eyes. But scientists studying fish color actually are discovering that fish color genetics is more like computer software than computer hardware. Oscar has shown an intuitive grasp of this idea and I have learned a lot from discussing guppy color "software" with him.
Yet another breeder and hobbyist guppy geneticist from Germany makes my top ten list. Robert Gall has been very generous sharing his carefully noted studies of guppy crosses with others and with me. He has written articles on guppy genetics that are very useful.
The Italian breeder Stefano Bressan is very active in the study of guppy genetics and the sharing of knowledge, particularly among his Italian friends. He conducted experiments and shared those on the Guppy Designer forum. I should mention Peter Schaffarth in Germany in the same vein and Hans Peter Neuse. Andrew Lim is emerging in the same light in Malaysia and South East Asia. And there are new faces appearing, like Rick Squire. I will have to update this list next year?
Who would you nominate for a spot on the top ten list of knowledgeable guppy breeders? I don't mean winners at guppy shows. I mean people who have actively advanced our knowledge of guppy software in such a way as to make it easier for others to follow their footsteps and create new and unique guppy phenotypes. Write me through the contact page on this site or on the facebook page accessible through the link on the menu at the top. If enough people respond, I will create a new blog on the subject.