Shrimp Interbreeding...?

So, one of our customers decided it would be cute to mix Red Cherry Shrimp and Blue Velvet shrimp in the same tank. Now, I remember reading that if these two were to interbreed, their offspring would become the wild coloration (light brown)... but what I see here is a mix of both colors on one shrimp.

I do know that these two shrimp are basically the same shrimp, with just different colorations, so...yeah. What gives?

WhatisthisIdon'teven....?

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(Photo taken by John Tseng)

Looks like an amano/RCS (I know it's not, but that's the color I see). Awesome looking mix though! Does he have more than one that looks like this? Perhaps he could breed a new strain...? lol

They can have cool colors or crappy browns. The cool colors will not breed true. Best to never mix them unless they are used for feeder shrimp. This one just happened to be a cool color.

KaraWolf: Nice analogy! I like that!

Blue velvets were selectively bred from red rili shrimp (red heads and tails, clear or blue gap between). Red rili were selectively bred from taiwan red. RCS were separately derived from a different wild source than taiwan red were, but it stands to reason that their color genetics are somewhat similar. If you breed taiwan red and blue velvets you should get something in between the two - a mix of taiwan red, red rili, and possibly BV even.

In this case I imagine brown would be a long way off, if ever.

I want... a shrimp that has a red head, blue body section, yellow tail, orange eyes, and green antena . . . YEAAAAAH!!! I'd call it the gayest shrimp ever, the Angelo Shrimp.  

hybrids in the shrimp section.... sweet. hybrids are taking over the box, just like they have at a lot of our LFS. Join the revolution! I know I have. And BTW, that shrimp pictured above is really cool. to me(a novice shrimp guy) it looks like a ghost shrimp who accidentally got its tail dipped in some red food coloring.

Well, technically these are not hybrids. They're selectively-bred varieties of the same species. Mixing blue pearl shrimp with RCS (neocaridina cf. zhangjiajiensis mixed with heteropoda) would yield hybrids.

pbmax wrote:Well, technically these are not hybrids.  They're selectively-bred varieties of the same species.  Mixing blue pearl shrimp with RCS (neocaridina cf. zhangjiajiensis mixed with heteropoda) would yield hybrids.

If we compared this species of shrimp to Homosapiens.. It would be the same as our races mixing around.

That neatly paints all aquatic hybrid detractors as racist. Nicely done.  

I think perhaps dog breeding is a better comparison, if you exclude wolf hybrids and other such nuttiness.

Totally reminds me of a Russel Peters comedy routine:

"if we get a man from Cuba, and a woman from Iceland, they will make little Ice Cubes!

... A German and a Greek? A Freek!"