# The 'Orange Dalmatian' Isopod Project



## agrosse

So I wanted to start this thread a a documentation of this project and also to see if anyone else is doing similar or the same thing with scaber genetics.


I recently opened one of my giant orange cultures to a surprise....










In searching for some answers I came across this paper 

http://labs.csb.utoronto.ca/larsen/pdf/Sowbug.pdf

According to this. Orange is a recessive trait in scaber. It's a shame that they didn't have Dalmatian in the mix but I guess that's where I get to fill in the blanks. 

After searching the internets to figure out how to sex scaber, i found this reference image....










and I figured out my little anomaly is a male, so I've paired him up with two orange females from his culture (hopefully to produce heterozygous oranges) and two female Dalmatians ( to make gray double hets). The plan is to breed the F1's back together to get more dalmatian oranges and eventually isolate the phenotype.


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## Hayden

I'll tell you again, AWESOME project man!!! I'll definitely be following this thread.


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## epiphytes etc.

Oh no! More designer morphs? Can these live in colorful groups? 

I look forward to seeing the progress. Keep us updated.


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## Aldross

Thanks for the picture to id sexes. I have seen slow production of some giant oranges I split from the main culture. Maybe I can sex them out for a better ratio.


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## Pumilo

When I was producing Giant Oranges, I used to see the occasional bright orange individual with a few white spots on them. I considered trying to start a line of white spotted, orange isopods, but it never got beyond, "That would be so cool!".


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## hypostatic

Cool. I'd call them "calico" or "koi" isopods though; fancy it up a notch why not


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## agrosse

epiphytes etc. said:


> Oh no! More designer morphs? Can these live in colorful groups?
> 
> I look forward to seeing the progress. Keep us updated.


Ha ha ha ha.....They can live in colorful groups and we at PODpushers™ encourage it. 

If you like this you should try our new Pfizer™ PILL bugs. Our little blue Pruinosis really "excite" frog habitats!

Sorry couldn't resist.....




Aldross said:


> Thanks for the picture to id sexes. I have seen slow production of some giant oranges I split from the main culture. Maybe I can sex them out for a better ratio.


Awesome! Yeah it took me awhile to find that and that's only half the battle, I've found with the smaller ones its easier with a magnifying glass and a headlamp. Good Luck!




Pumilo said:


> When I was producing Giant Oranges, I used to see the occasional bright orange individual with a few white spots on them. I considered trying to start a line of white spotted, orange isopods, but it never got beyond, "That would be so cool!".


Do you still have any? Id be interested in seeing if the trait was genetic if you have any more pop up. Any pics of them?




hypostatic said:


> Cool. I'd call them "calico" or "koi" isopods though; fancy it up a notch why not


I think Calico is already taken. They use that to describe what the paper listed above calls 'mottled'. It does look like a koi for sure!


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## radiata

Alan, 

I believe Orin has stated that Spanish/Giant Orange isopods have yet to be classified. Considering that they have different humidity/moisture requirements than P. Scaber, they may not be Scabers at all. So, if you get any offspring they may be hybrids, and worse yet, may be infertile. Good luck with your project. Who knows, maybe you'll demonstrate that the Spanish/Giant Orange are actually Scabers after all!

Bob


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## hypostatic

I've never heard that the "giant oranges" weren't P. scaber...


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## agrosse

radiata said:


> Alan,
> 
> 
> 
> I believe Orin has stated that Spanish/Giant Orange isopods have yet to be classified. Considering that they have different humidity/moisture requirements than P. Scaber, they may not be Scabers at all. So, if you get any offspring they may be hybrids, and worse yet, may be infertile. Good luck with your project. Who knows, maybe you'll demonstrate that the Spanish/Giant Orange are actually Scabers after all!
> 
> 
> 
> Bob



Interesting. I've never heard that.

I do have a friend on a parallel track that has already crossed and orange and a Dalmatian and his offspring are just starting to color up. His original orange stock actually came from a gravid female he found on his porch in a population of scaber and her clutch was half grey, half orange.


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## wikiwakawakawee

I have seen this in my isopods too, but they're of the giant canyon isopod variety, just got them from my backyard.


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## agrosse

wikiwakawakawee said:


> I have seen this in my isopods too, but they're of the giant canyon isopod variety, just got them from my backyard.



Got any pictures?


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## wikiwakawakawee

agrosse said:


> Got any pictures?


Well I could take a picture, but let me try to find that specific iso in my cultures.


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## wikiwakawakawee

Alright I found it. It pretty much just looks like the regular dalmatian variety.









But the weird part is that all the other isos in my cultures look like this:









It just popped up out of nowhere oneday.


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## wikiwakawakawee

Haha I just realized that the isopods were "getting it on" in the second picture I took


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## agrosse

Hmm. The pictures arent coming through.


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## wikiwakawakawee

agrosse said:


> Hmm. The pictures arent coming through.


What does it say?


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## radiata

hypostatic said:


> I've never heard that the "giant oranges" weren't P. scaber...


Orin posted it in this forum a while back. It would be more correct to say no one knows if Giant/Spanish Orange isos are Scabers or not. Considering their different moisture requirements, I'm inclined to believe they're not.


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## agrosse

Interesting. What are the different requirements? I've kept my scaber and oranges the same way.

I wonder if this has anything to do with the location of the sample populations. For example if you collected scaber populations from Arizona vs Georgia. The Arizona scaber would be adapted to a more arid environment while the Georgia would be adapted to a higher humidity and therefore would culture differently? I dunno, thoughts?


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## Pumilo

Sorry, no pictures and I don't have any isopods anymore. 
I am also inclined to believe that Giant Orange are NOT P scaber. My Giant Orange bred and completed life cycles sooo much faster than P. scaber are supposed to.


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## agrosse

Pumilo said:


> Sorry, no pictures and I don't have any isopods anymore.
> 
> I am also inclined to believe that Giant Orange are NOT P scaber. My Giant Orange bred and completed life cycles sooo much faster than P. scaber are supposed to.



Where did you find your control data for scaber reproduction? I'd like to compare it to what I'm getting in my normal, calico, and Dalmatian cultures to see how they match up...


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## hypostatic

Pumilo said:


> Sorry, no pictures and I don't have any isopods anymore.
> I am also inclined to believe that Giant Orange are NOT P scaber. My Giant Orange bred and completed life cycles sooo much faster than P. scaber are supposed to.


The paper in the first post says P. scaber reaches sexual maturity at around 3-4 months (also has an orange phenotype). But I think general "knowledge" is that they mature around/over 1 year of age (See: Life cycle stages of woodlice). I believe here is the confusion.

I think I'd side with the breeding paper on color genetics on the age of sexual maturity, since they do look at that carefully and use it to establish their crosses.


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## radiata

agrosse said:


> Interesting. What are the different requirements? I've kept my scaber and oranges the same way.
> 
> I wonder if this has anything to do with the location of the sample populations. For example if you collected scaber populations from Arizona vs Georgia. The Arizona scaber would be adapted to a more arid environment while the Georgia would be adapted to a higher humidity and therefore would culture differently? I dunno, thoughts?


Except for the Oranges, I mist my isopods twice a week when I feed them. I mist the Oranges only once a month.

I've also used the Oranges as a "clean up crew" in a large Bean Beetle culture I've been playing with. They're multiplying there despite the relatively drier conditions. I add some water to the ABG substrate if I think it is too dry.


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## agrosse

radiata said:


> Except for the Oranges, I mist my isopods twice a week when I feed them. I mist the Oranges only once a month.
> 
> I've also used the Oranges as a "clean up crew" in a large Bean Beetle culture I've been playing with. They're multiplying there despite the relatively drier conditions. I add some water to the ABG substrate if I think it is too dry.


Have you put normal scaber in the same conditions?

Theres no doubt that other isopods like more moisture, especially philoscia muscorum, which like it downright swampy, but of the 60ish scaber I've collected they have all been in dry upland pine forest. Of the seven species of isopods I have collected locally scaber inhabit the driest habitat. 

I thought for sure you were going to tell me your oranges liked more humidity! Ha ha ha.....

As a side note, I also found this blog documenting an orange scaber population in Europe....

The Skokholm Blog

Also this website has a list of documented locations for scaber

issg Database: Distribution of Porcellio scaber

Spain being listed as one of the locations if the orange did indeed come from Spain......

And using the paper listed in the initial post and the blog link above its accepted that there are orange populations of scaber in Canada and Europe.

The more I read up on this the more I lean to the them being one and the same. 

Anyone know an entomologist that specializes in isopods?


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## Aquarimax

Have there bene any developments with the orange Dalmatian Morph? In another thread 'Rare and Uncommon Isopods' the 'Koi' Morph is mentioned. Is that morph a result of this project?



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## agrosse

Yes. So I got in touch with an enthusiast in Germany who is working with something that looks like what I was calling orange Dalmatian. He has them labeled as "koi" and since he has been working with them longer and to avoid confusion I'm going with his label.

As far as an update: babies are still growing....

I have 3-4 baby koi's, a bunch of orange het koi, and a small young colony from a Dalmatian/koi cross.

I'll see if I can get some pictures to put up soon!


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## Judy S

how 'bout appalosa...or pinto...just suggestin'..... am interested in how they are used in bean beetle cultures, but do not want to go off topic....


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## Aquarimax

agrosse said:


> Yes. So I got in touch with an enthusiast in Germany who is working with something that looks like what I was calling orange Dalmatian. He has them labeled as "koi" and since he has been working with them longer and to avoid confusion I'm going with his label.
> 
> As far as an update: babies are still growing....
> 
> I have 3-4 baby koi's, a bunch of orange het koi, and a small young colony from a Dalmatian/koi cross.
> 
> I'll see if I can get some pictures to put up soon!


Thanks very much for the update! I am glad to hear of the success of the project, and look forward to further developments.


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## agrosse

Dad and his girls


I apologize for the bad pics. These guys are still pretty small and hard to get to sit still to get pictures of them.








Koi and normal orange babies










Koi baby









Another koi baby









Another koi baby


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## hypostatic

agrosse said:


> https://images.tapatalk-cdn.com/15/08/05/3ac182c18ccd67728f8d6b66ad1663d4.jpg[/IMG[/quote]
> 
> HAH! Koi isos! That one in the middle looks pretty interesting. If you're into breeding the isos, I think shrimp breeding would be right up your alley.


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## Aquarimax

Fantastic! Thank you for posting the pictures...it is interesting to see how they are turning out. I will look forward to seeing how they look once they are fully colored up!


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## Tykie

I would love to buy some when they are available. Add me on the Wanted list


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## agrosse

Updated pictures.....



















And had two of these guys pop out. They have pale eyes and a completely white carapace.



















Not the most interesting, but if they stay this way, these guys should be complete recessives and should make isolating phenotypes a lot easier.....


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## orin

I have seen a lot of light colored and speckled oranges in the nearly twenty years since I isolated them, but never one so cool as that male.

One problem I see is you used old, mated adult females and you cannot in any way ensure any of your young were sired by that father. Young dalmatian commonly start out with no spots and the "koi" coloration is not unusual for young standard orange. You might be better off throwing the male into an orange culture and pulling out the color form as it appears when you have enough individuals to start a colony. Either way I wish you luck.


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## agrosse

Thanks for the info Orin!

I have been working in virgin females into the culture with the koi male. I used the mated females to jump start the project and each female is pulled when eggs show and that clutch becomes its own culture. I guess we will see how this works.

So here is the update......

As orin pointed out, the scaber I originally pointed out above thought to be koi, turned out to be mottled orange. I got a little too excited and jumped the gun.....

The good news........The white, pale eyed individuals are actually developing darker red eyes and getting orange spots as they molt. Hopefully I will get a good sex ratio from these so that I can totally isolate the morph.

On a different note, there has been a lot of weird things poping up in the offspring and I found a pair of odd looking oranges...










I don't know if this is related to the koi morph but I've isolated it to figure out what's going on here.....


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## Aquarimax

I found this unusual Dalmatian in my culture recently. Though the spot in the lower right area is actually a bit of food, note that this specimen does indeed sport orange markings:










My Dalmatian culture has three different sources...I am not sure which one this came from. I think I will try to isolate it like Alan has done.


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## agrosse

Sweet! Are his eyes black? I have seen a few in my cultures with brown/orange spots. You should try and isolate it and let me know if it breeds true. My guess is that the Dalmatian mutation just turns off and on the gene (or genes) that controls color and these are calico individuals.










The reason I ask about the eyes is I'm working with what I'm calling 'ghost Dalmatian' which has pink eyes and purple spots. This was a result of the koi x Dalmatian cross. I'm fairly certain at this point the koi and orange Dalmatian are different mutations. I'm getting lots of weird but awesome things.










Heres the ghost Dalmatian. Yours anything like this? It would be cool if it popped up somewhere else.....


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## Aquarimax

I will try to find that individual again and get a good look at its eyes...it would be cool if it turned out to be a ghost Dalmatian like yours. It makes a lot of sense what you said about calicoes...Dalmatian with the calico trait would probably look like that. I am really looking forward to the potential isopod projects in the near future. 😀


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## blacksheep998

Hello everyone!

I've been following this post for awhile now but haven't commented yet. Figured I'd share my own isopod crossbreeding experiment.

I've been in touch with agrosse on and off on another forum, and have been documenting my own experiments over there.

My project has been slightly different from his in that I didn't start with an orange dalmatian. I had oranges and dalmatians and decided to try crossbreeding them.

My results have been quite different from his too.

My first generation of offspring were plain gray, with a couple calicos mixed in. I was expecting grays though, since I already knew from earlier experiments that the orange color is a single-gene recessive trait and suspected that the dalmatian color was as well.

Their offspring though are proving to be much more interesting.

Thus far in the second generation I've gotten 123 grays, 54 orange, 75 dalmatians, and 10 orange dalmatians.

Here's the orange dalmatians.










This more or less lines up with the ratio I was expecting to get, which was a 9:3:3:1 ratio of those colors, respectively. I think there's still some more orange dalmatians mixed in with the regular ones, but unless they develop some orange spots it's really hard to tell them apart. The orange dals do have red eyes, but they're still fairly small and hard to see.

Also, I seem to have discovered a similar thing as Aquarimax.

I mentioned earlier that I've previously experimented with crossing orange isopods with wild type grays. This is how I knew that the orange color is single gene recessive. But in all my experiments, I never got any calicos.

Calicos popped up in my crossbreeds though. So I started to wonder if maybe some of my dalmatians had the calico trait. I looked through them and actually found a few. Check out the large one by my thumb in this picture.










I'm sure this isn't an orange dalmatian. It's got black eyes and some gray spots. It can only be a calico dalmatian.

This gives me some other cool info too. If I'm right and none of my oranges have the calico trait, but my dalmatians and some of my F1 crossbreeds do, then it means that the calico gene must be dominant to the plain gray color.

I've also discovered something else quite interesting.

In one batch of F1 crossbreeds, and in only that one batch, I got some orange offspring. This was an orange female in a container of dalmatian males. I'm 100% positive that she never mated with an orange male because I removed her from my orange container when she was much too small to mate, and she had already produced one batch of offspring that were all gray.

Initially I thought that maybe a male in my dalmatian container was carrying the orange trait, so I decided to try another experiment.

I took all the orange F1 offspring and isolated them into their own container. If their father was a dalmatian carrying the orange trait then they'd be carrying the dalmatian trait and so their offspring would be 25% orange dalmatians. But that didn't turn out to be the case.










Their offspring are all orange. This means that their father couldn't have been a dalmatian, and the only possibility left is that Porcellio scaber is apparently capable of parthenogenesis.

Anyway, thanks for reading! Feel free to post any questions, I'll be happy to answer to the best of my abilities!


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## agrosse

Interesting stuff Ryan.

This is a good time to show the difference between 'Orange Dalmatian" and 'koi'. As you can see, the OD looks as you would expect an orange version of the dalmatian gene to appear. The 'Koi' gene is expressed in bigger patches and the edges fade where the dalmatian spots tend to be crisp.










These baby 'koi' are a good representation the range of the phenotype. 

I'm also getting some normals showing signs of what I believe is the same gene










They are still pretty young though so it'll be interesting to see how it develops as they mature.


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## agrosse

One other thing.....

Has anyone gotten any Dalmatians like this.....










I'm not sure if this is an interesting Dalmatian or something else new.


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## Rushthezeppelin

blacksheep998 said:


> Hello everyone!
> 
> I've been following this post for awhile now but haven't commented yet. Figured I'd share my own isopod crossbreeding experiment.
> 
> I've been in touch with agrosse on and off on another forum, and have been documenting my own experiments over there.
> 
> My project has been slightly different from his in that I didn't start with an orange dalmatian. I had oranges and dalmatians and decided to try crossbreeding them.
> 
> My results have been quite different from his too.
> 
> My first generation of offspring were plain gray, with a couple calicos mixed in. I was expecting grays though, since I already knew from earlier experiments that the orange color is a single-gene recessive trait and suspected that the dalmatian color was as well.
> 
> Their offspring though are proving to be much more interesting.
> 
> Thus far in the second generation I've gotten 123 grays, 54 orange, 75 dalmatians, and 10 orange dalmatians.
> 
> Here's the orange dalmatians.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> This more or less lines up with the ratio I was expecting to get, which was a 9:3:3:1 ratio of those colors, respectively. I think there's still some more orange dalmatians mixed in with the regular ones, but unless they develop some orange spots it's really hard to tell them apart. The orange dals do have red eyes, but they're still fairly small and hard to see.
> 
> Also, I seem to have discovered a similar thing as Aquarimax.
> 
> I mentioned earlier that I've previously experimented with crossing orange isopods with wild type grays. This is how I knew that the orange color is single gene recessive. But in all my experiments, I never got any calicos.
> 
> Calicos popped up in my crossbreeds though. So I started to wonder if maybe some of my dalmatians had the calico trait. I looked through them and actually found a few. Check out the large one by my thumb in this picture.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> I'm sure this isn't an orange dalmatian. It's got black eyes and some gray spots. It can only be a calico dalmatian.
> 
> This gives me some other cool info too. If I'm right and none of my oranges have the calico trait, but my dalmatians and some of my F1 crossbreeds do, then it means that the calico gene must be dominant to the plain gray color.
> 
> I've also discovered something else quite interesting.
> 
> In one batch of F1 crossbreeds, and in only that one batch, I got some orange offspring. This was an orange female in a container of dalmatian males. I'm 100% positive that she never mated with an orange male because I removed her from my orange container when she was much too small to mate, and she had already produced one batch of offspring that were all gray.
> 
> Initially I thought that maybe a male in my dalmatian container was carrying the orange trait, so I decided to try another experiment.
> 
> I took all the orange F1 offspring and isolated them into their own container. If their father was a dalmatian carrying the orange trait then they'd be carrying the dalmatian trait and so their offspring would be 25% orange dalmatians. But that didn't turn out to be the case.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Their offspring are all orange. This means that their father couldn't have been a dalmatian, and the only possibility left is that Porcellio scaber is apparently capable of parthenogenesis.
> 
> Anyway, thanks for reading! Feel free to post any questions, I'll be happy to answer to the best of my abilities!


Awesome info man. So interesting to see ordinary people making strides in the field of genetics and possibly even biology in general if your parthenogenesis theory pans out.


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## blacksheep998

agrosse said:


> One other thing.....
> 
> Has anyone gotten any Dalmatians like this.....
> 
> I'm not sure if this is an interesting Dalmatian or something else new.


Is that from your regular dalmatians or was it a result of the crossbreeding project? Because it looks sort of similar to the koi patterning, but is gray.


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## agrosse

blacksheep998 said:


> Is that from your regular dalmatians or was it a result of the crossbreeding project? Because it looks sort of similar to the koi patterning, but is gray.



It's an F2 from the dalmatian x koi


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## blacksheep998

agrosse said:


> It's an F2 from the dalmatian x koi


My guess is it's probably got the koi pattern but without the orange color.


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## Aquarimax

blacksheep998 said:


> Hello everyone!
> 
> I've been following this post for awhile now but haven't commented yet. Figured I'd share my own isopod crossbreeding experiment.
> 
> I've been in touch with agrosse on and off on another forum, and have been documenting my own experiments over there.
> 
> My project has been slightly different from his in that I didn't start with an orange dalmatian. I had oranges and dalmatians and decided to try crossbreeding them.
> 
> My results have been quite different from his too.
> 
> My first generation of offspring were plain gray, with a couple calicos mixed in. I was expecting grays though, since I already knew from earlier experiments that the orange color is a single-gene recessive trait and suspected that the dalmatian color was as well.
> 
> Their offspring though are proving to be much more interesting.
> 
> Thus far in the second generation I've gotten 123 grays, 54 orange, 75 dalmatians, and 10 orange dalmatians.
> 
> Here's the orange dalmatians.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> This more or less lines up with the ratio I was expecting to get, which was a 9:3:3:1 ratio of those colors, respectively. I think there's still some more orange dalmatians mixed in with the regular ones, but unless they develop some orange spots it's really hard to tell them apart. The orange dals do have red eyes, but they're still fairly small and hard to see.
> 
> Also, I seem to have discovered a similar thing as Aquarimax.
> 
> I mentioned earlier that I've previously experimented with crossing orange isopods with wild type grays. This is how I knew that the orange color is single gene recessive. But in all my experiments, I never got any calicos.
> 
> Calicos popped up in my crossbreeds though. So I started to wonder if maybe some of my dalmatians had the calico trait. I looked through them and actually found a few. Check out the large one by my thumb in this picture.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> I'm sure this isn't an orange dalmatian. It's got black eyes and some gray spots. It can only be a calico dalmatian.
> 
> This gives me some other cool info too. If I'm right and none of my oranges have the calico trait, but my dalmatians and some of my F1 crossbreeds do, then it means that the calico gene must be dominant to the plain gray color.
> 
> I've also discovered something else quite interesting.
> 
> In one batch of F1 crossbreeds, and in only that one batch, I got some orange offspring. This was an orange female in a container of dalmatian males. I'm 100% positive that she never mated with an orange male because I removed her from my orange container when she was much too small to mate, and she had already produced one batch of offspring that were all gray.
> 
> Initially I thought that maybe a male in my dalmatian container was carrying the orange trait, so I decided to try another experiment.
> 
> I took all the orange F1 offspring and isolated them into their own container. If their father was a dalmatian carrying the orange trait then they'd be carrying the dalmatian trait and so their offspring would be 25% orange dalmatians. But that didn't turn out to be the case.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Their offspring are all orange. This means that their father couldn't have been a dalmatian, and the only possibility left is that Porcellio scaber is apparently capable of parthenogenesis.
> 
> Anyway, thanks for reading! Feel free to post any questions, I'll be happy to answer to the best of my abilities!






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## Aquarimax

Aquarimax said:


> Inviato dal mio iPhone utilizzando Tapatalk



It's great to see that this is working for you. I love the look of the orange Dalmatians. I put 8 Dalmatians and 8 oranges together a month or two ago. They should be reaching maturity soon. Did you leave the parents with the F1s?


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## Ghostkerbomb

This project seems so fun. Good job

Out of curiosity though, how does the hobby view this differently than selectively breeding frogs? ie; chocolate leucs. To me it seems qualitatively the same


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## blacksheep998

Aquarimax said:


> It's great to see that this is working for you. I love the look of the orange Dalmatians. I put 8 Dalmatians and 8 oranges together a month or two ago. They should be reaching maturity soon. Did you leave the parents with the F1s?


No, I separated them because I wanted to see if I was going to get the 9 : 3 : 3 : 1 ratio of gray to orange to dalmatian to orange dalmatian in the F2 generation and leaving the parents in could skew that.

For what it's worth, the numbers I'm getting have been fairly close to the expected ratio.

At last count I've sorted 464 F2 offspring. Out of that many, my expected numbers of colors would be 261 gray, 87 orange, 87 dal, and 29 orange dal.

My actual count has been 229 gray, 89 orange, 133 dal, and 13 orange dal. I'm positive there's more orange dals hiding among the regular ones, but they're hard to tell apart until they get larger. I'm keeping my eye on a few that I think might turn out to be orange dals, but I'm not sure enough about that yet to count them as such.


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## blacksheep998

agrosse said:


> One other thing.....
> 
> Has anyone gotten any Dalmatians like this.....
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> I'm not sure if this is an interesting Dalmatian or something else new.


I never have before, but I was feeding my dalmatians today and spotted this little guy.










He looks different from yours though. Dalmatians seem to have a fairly sharp boundary between the colored and white portions, and mine seems to have that as well. But yours doesn't seem to have as sharp of a line between them as mine does, so I'm standing by what I said before. I think yours has the koi patterning but with gray coloration instead of orange.

I just wanted to add that catching that guy for a picture was not easy. I lost track of him and had to play 'where's waldo' among a sea of other isopods.

You can play too! Here's what it looked like when I finally managed to find the bark chunk where he was hiding.


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## Aquarimax

I found the dark Dalmatian...I had to switch to the tablet, the image wasn't big enough on the phone. : )
You inspired me to refresh my memory of Punnett squares...

it helped me visualize why the ratios work the way they do. 

My Orange x Dalmatian bin should be producing young any time...looking forward to the grey double recessives!


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## blacksheep998

The Punnett square is very helpful, and I'm a bit closer to my ratio it predicts than I was last time I posted. I've found a bunch of orange dals mixed in with the regular ones lately. It gets easier to tell them apart as they get larger.

At last count, I've sorted 546 offspring. From that total, I'd expect about 307 gray, 102 orange, 102 dalmatian, and 34 orange dalmatian.

My actual count has been 275 gray, 105 orange, 143 dalmatian, and 23 orange dal.

And if your F1 hybrids are anything like mine they'll be amazingly fertile. I don't know why but I frequently see mine carrying egg cases so large that their legs barely reach the ground.


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## Aquarimax

blacksheep998 said:


> The Punnett square is very helpful, and I'm a bit closer to my ratio it predicts than I was last time I posted.
> 
> 
> 
> And if your F1 hybrids are anything like mine they'll be amazingly fertile. I don't know why but I frequently see mine carrying egg cases so large that their legs barely reach the ground.



It's fun that the young produced are in large enough numbers that the results are that close--and always getting closer--to the predicted ratios. 

It sounds like there's some intraspecific hybrid vigor going on...I sure hope to see the same with mine!



Inviato dal mio iPhone utilizzando Tapatalk


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## topher

Ghostkerbomb said:


> This project seems so fun. Good job
> 
> Out of curiosity though, how does the hobby view this differently than selectively breeding frogs? ie; chocolate leucs. To me it seems qualitatively the same


The fact that they are bugs has a lot to do with it  Not many people are as concerned about the genetic purity/imperfections associated with line breeding bugs as they are with frogs haha.


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## agrosse

topher said:


> The fact that they are bugs has a lot to do with it  Not many people are as concerned about the genetic purity/imperfections associated with line breeding bugs as they are with frogs haha.



Also, the majority of Isopods are transplants from Europe so the idea of locality specific isn't as applicable.


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## Aquarimax

Aquarimax said:


> My Orange x Dalmatian bin should be producing young any time...looking forward to the grey double recessives!



I just checked the bin, there are definitely a quite a few very tiny young...and at least two females carrying eggs. The only trouble is that I have 8 Dalmatians and 8 oranges in there. There's no telling whether the young are crosses until they get a little bigger.


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## blacksheep998

Aquarimax said:


> I just checked the bin, there are definitely a quite a few very tiny young...and at least two females carrying eggs. The only trouble is that I have 8 Dalmatians and 8 oranges in there. There's no telling whether the young are crosses until they get a little bigger.


I've got the same problem with my F3 generation.

My F2 orange dalmatians have started producing babies, but they lived among the orange and regular dalmatian F2's for awhile until they got large enough for me to tell them apart. One of them even had an egg case when I found her. So I'm sure some of those F3's aren't going to be orange dals.

But like yours, until they get bigger I've got no way to tell them apart.


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## agrosse

Young Orange Dalmatian











Normal and Albino Dalmatian


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## Aquarimax

I have confirmed today that I've got some successful F1 offspring...they're old enough that I can see that some of the juveniles are gray! In a month or so, I'll begin separating them from the parents.

I also noticed something interesting in one of my Spanish Orange bins: an orange with a few white flecks and distinctively white antennae. Unfortunately, I lost sight of it before I could get a picture, but if I can catch the critter, I'll isolate it and see what happens.


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## blacksheep998

Aquarimax said:


> I have confirmed today that I've got some successful F1 offspring...they're old enough that I can see that some of the juveniles are gray! In a month or so, I'll begin separating them from the parents.


Awesome update! Glad to see someone else is confirming my results.

My F3 generation is coming along nicely as well. I had to remove a couple of them that were turning orange, but that's to be expected since some of the orange dalmatians are approaching breeding size when I found them in the mixed container.

The majority of the babies are staying white though. I just dug out a few to try and get a better look at them. Here's the best picture I can manage.










Some of them definitely have red eyes or orange spots appearing. The two in the front and center of the picture in particular. The others are harder to tell. Some clearly have black eyes, while others look somewhat reddish. I think it's just still too soon to tell for sure.


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## agrosse

More pictures....I have about 30ish now



















On the project front, I have enough stock now to do an albino Dalmatian / koi cross I'm hoping to get a solid lavender scaber, along with all kinds of other weird genetic combos.

I should have enough stock to release some of the cool stuff toward the end of the year.....albino Dalmatian, koi, orange Dalmatian, snow, calico koi, starburst...


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## Aquarimax

I just isolated 6 grey F1s (Dalmatian x orange), but I noticed a large number of calicoes among the offspring. Presumably they are also double hets, but I am not sure how the sex-limited calico gene will affect things. I may just use the grey ones.


Aquarimax


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## agrosse

I would leave them in there. I had a bunch in my f1s. Your grey males are most likely carrying the calico gene anyway. The only result I've seen thus far is that you will get calico Dalmatians and possibly starburst (calico oranges) in your f2's. 









F1 colony with young









Starburst scaber


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## blacksheep998

I thought I'd post an updated picture of my orange dalmatians as well, since they seem to be popping out a whole bunch of babies right now.










I have been finding a few regular dalmatians mixed in with their offspring, but these guys were born from a group of mixed colors, and a few of them had grown to breeding size before I found and isolated them all. So that's to be expected.

Most of their offspring though have been orange dalmatians like their parents. The colony is really starting to take off.


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## Aquarimax

agrosse said:


> I would leave them in there. I had a bunch in my f1s. Your grey males are most likely carrying the calico gene anyway. The only result I've seen thus far is that you will get calico Dalmatians and possibly starburst (calico oranges) in your f2's.



I did just as you suggested, and I probably have 20+ F1 juveniles that seen to be growing fast. : )


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## Aquarimax

blacksheep998 said:


> I thought I'd post an updated picture of my orange dalmatians as well, since they seem to be popping out a whole bunch of babies right now.
> 
> 
> 
> I have been finding a few regular dalmatians mixed in with their offspring, but these guys were born from a group of mixed colors, and a few of them had grown to breeding size before I found and isolated them all. So that's to be expected.
> 
> 
> 
> Most of their offspring though have been orange dalmatians like their parents. The colony is really starting to take off.



That is a lovely sight! I can hardly wait for mine to show up. I've got a while to wait. : )


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## Tykie

I may have missed this but what do you feed your Isopods ??Thanks


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## blacksheep998

Tykie said:


> I may have missed this but what do you feed your Isopods ??Thanks


I feed mine a mix of stuff, but primary the smaller colonies get Flukers orange cube cricket food since they might take a couple days to eat even a small piece and that gel stuff doesn't get moldy.

My larger colonies get assorted types of fish food. Algae wafers and cichlid pellets are favorites.


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## Aquarimax

I found the first F2 offspring today. Too small to tell phenotype, but I'm excited for the orange Dalmatians!


Aquarimax


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## blacksheep998

Orange dalmatians are proving to be extremely prolific. I'm still picking out an occasional orange or regular dalmatian baby, but they're getting rarer as time goes on.


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## wesly2007

Where can I get a culture of these?


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## blacksheep998

wesly2007 said:


> Where can I get a culture of these?


I'm hoping to have some available for sale by the fall, though I'm not sure what I'll charge for them yet.

Additionally, I've found a second dalmatian with a gray body and white head. Put them both into a new container with a ~10 other dalmatians to start a new colony. I tried to select the ones with as many large spots as possible, so it should be interesting to see what comes of them.


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