About three years ago, I learnt about King Lyretail swordtails and found the phenotype very fascinating. While common Lyretail was quite charming, I was somehow disappointed with the fact that roughly 50% of the males within a litter expressing the Lyretail trait, couldn’t breed naturally due to elongated gonopodia; thus, they were technically considered useless to a breeding project. King Lyretail, on the other hand, could breed well with normal sex organ. The origination of King lyre was not known, but according to an article of Mr. Rainer Schultz, Germany in 2010, the trait was observed by him and some other fellow hobbyists. By the time of composing this article, I noticed that King phenotype was seen in Germany, the Ukraine, Turkey, Indonesia, and the USA. The name King Lyretail (alias “Königs Lyra”) was suggested by Mr. Schultz due to the fact that the dorsal fin shape looked crown-like. The King Lyretail indeed resembles the Lyretail model, which showed certain extensions in most fins, for instance, lyre swords at caudal, tipped dorsal, long pectoral and ventral fins. However, the phenotype could be distinguished from common Lyretail by the following details: (1) A King Lyretail individual with normal gonopodium; (2) The dorsal fin has some anterior rays extending longer, and this trait remains visible when co-expressing with the high dorsal fin (aka. hi-fin) trait; (3) the upper sword of the King Lyretail is much shorter than the lower sword, compared to the common Lyretail, where the pair of swords are about the same length. Despite that, some sellers, either mistakenly or intentionally label a shorten gonopodium (manually cut) swordtail as a King Lyretail, the three characteristics listed above should help the hobbyist to avoid taking home undesired fishes. I have since learnt that manually shortening the swordtail sex organ may induce scar tissue forming at the cut site and causing reproductive dysfunction (at least to my experience). The good news with King Lyretail swordtails is they could reproduce and the trait is dominant just like with the common Lyretail. Nevertheless, the not-so-good news is that females born to a Kings Lyretail father didn’t show Lyretail traits. This information was mentioned by Mr. Schultz through his article, and I myself would like to confirm his observation through my breeding experiment during the past three years. I, therefore, refer to King males as King because no King Lyretail females were ever recognized. By matching my first King to an albino common fin Kohaku female swordtail (P generation), I obtained 12 King and 8 common fin males in F1. All F1 females didn’t show any noticeable King Lyretail traits. An F1 King was matched with a non-sibling albino Kohaku female swordtail and produced approximately 45% of King from all males (11:13). Meanwhile, the same F1 King breeder was bred to a non-related hi-fin albino Kohaku female, giving King-to-non King at a ratio of 1:1. The fact that F2 frys popped up some albino individuals gave a positive feedback from the F1 test cross by Mendelian law. King Lyretail is not new to the hobbyist, but remained subtle. So far, there was no published article about this strain. I had a great pleasure talking to a hobbyist named Mr. Ken Hengstebeck, USA. He happened to have six King Lyretails out of a total of twenty within the litter from the cross of wild swordtail Rio Otapa to an albino hi-fin red female. He also reported to see two females in his F1 with lower swords. Interesting enough? His result more likely confirmed what Mr. Schultz mentioned about the phenomenon of the “female with sword.” Unfortunately, according to Mr. Hengstebeck, the parents didn't survive long enough to produce more offspring. The long sword female had died from a bacterial infection while being isolated for delivery and the line was terminated. Another hobbyist who might be very knowledgeable about King Lyretail is Mr. Darrell Nekoba from Hawaii, but I haven’t had a good opportunity to interview him for the topic. Hopefully, my article about the King Lyretail would entertain you and/or ring the bell if you ever came across such strains in your hobby and start sharing your stories to all of us because this strain would become more popular with increasing of people’s awareness. Another reason that makes the King Lyretail being understated to the hobby is because many people believe that King is a new Lyretail variant. That means they would likely be crossed to a Lyretail female with a high expectation to produce 100% Lyretail result. In fact, common Lyretail trait would override King Lyre trait, which induces extension in all fins, including the gonopodium when the two traits co-express in same individual. This means you could only expect to see King Lyretail pop up from common fin juvenile males. In my King Lyretail breeding experiment, I found that not 100% offspring males turned out to be King. The ratio could be even lower than 50% with fairly high credential, as I used a mesh trap to collect the newborn fry. So, when this thing added up to the fact above when you put these two issues together, the chance to expect King Lyretail from the cross with a Lyretail female is even lower. A similar result may happen when fancy swordtail breeders cross Kings to a hi-fin female and then strictly cull out all low fin juveniles when the hi-fin trait starts expressing. So, they can only expect to see hi-fin King Lyretail this way.
King Lyretail and hi-fin are independent traits, so they could be co-expressed in the same individual without any issue. A note that I would like to add is that the King Lyretail trait would not express before sexual maturation like you often see in Lyretail and hi-fin swordtails. This is an important fact to note to prevent hobbyists from culling the King Lyretail batch from a young age. While I only observe the King Lyretail trait to express in males and after sexual maturation, I hypothesized that the trait is sex-linked and/or located on the sex chromosome rather than on an autosomal chromosome like Lyretail does. However, whether the King Lyretail trait is the result of a rare Lyretail gene crossover during chromosome recombination or both are independent in genetics makeup remained to be researched.
1 Comment
Stephen Shawcross
2/2/2022 03:45:01 pm
I am seeing king lyretails in a not so local fish shop. First time in with albino's before Christmas and last Saturday I purchase the only one in a tank of black swordtails.
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