Initial Studies on Inheritance of Color in the Atlantic Bottlenose Dolphin
IAAAM Archive
Joanne Lowenstein1; Paul T. Cardeilhac2
1Marineland of Florida, St. Augustine, FL; 2College of Veterinary Medicine, University of Florida, Gainesville, FL

Wild-type color pattern in the dolphin is a bluish steel gray or slate gray (gray) dorsal surface gradually changing to a pale ventral surface. Wild dolphins having a light tan dorsal surface have been captured from the Gulf of Mexico. Offspring of matings between wild animals and male and female tan dolphins have been used in a study of the inheritance of color. In crosses of the male tan with wild-type gray the animals appear a normal gray with a light tan lace visible on the edges of same of the pale ventral areas. A double dose of tan (an offspring of two tan dolphins) produced a tan offspring. Based on these observations it would appear that both gray and tan are incompletely dominant. A single dose of gray (gray females and a tan male) produced tan laced animals where tan has apparently been masked by gray. Tan dolphins and single dose tans appear equal in vigor and growth rate to wild-type gray animals. It would appear that color inheritance in dolphins is single-locus-gene or simple mendelian inheritance.

Speaker Information
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Paul T. Cardeilhac, DVM, PhD
University of Florida, College of Veterinary Medicine
Gainesville, FL

Joanne Lowenstein
Marineland of Florida
St. Augustine, FL


MAIN : Session IX : Inheritance of Color
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