Molly swordtail hybrid

[Chriseastham]

 

[Chriseastham]

I've got a question, in my tank a Molly and a swordtail has successfully made it and created a beautiful fish does anybody have any information about what this may be worth or what to do with it got 100% proof I got videos and pictures from what I read it said it would be extremely hard for it to happen because they're two different types of fish and it said it's potentially a new species

 

[Rusty_Shackleford]

Flush that monstrosity down the toilet. It's not a new species, it's a hybrid. Species only exist in the wild.

 

[Chriseastham]

of course it's a new species just like when people cross the tiger and the line and created a liger

 

[Rusty_Shackleford]

of course it's a new species just like when people cross the tiger and the line and created a liger

Go study some science, a liger isn't a new species either, it's a hybrid.

 

[Chriseastham]

Google said it's very rare and said people have claims that they have had this happen but no evidence and it said if this is the case that it could be worth thousands of dollars per fish is this correct or no I have no idea

 

[Chriseastham]

I don't really care about how it happened I just want to know is it a new species and if so is it worth any money

 

[Fishmanic]

We can keep this conversation going if we keep the animosity down. If we dont play nice, this thread will be expunged.

 

[Essjay]

It is impossible for mollies and swordtails to hybridise as they are in different genuses. Mollies are Poecilia and swordtails are Xiphophorus.

However, most mollies sold on stores are already hybrids of different Poecilia mollies, and most swordtails sold in stores are swordtail/platy hybrids.



Which fish in the video is the one you refer to a hybrid - the male grey fish or the balloon yellow fish in the foreground, the grey female fish in the background or the fish which appears very briefly on the right hand side just at the end of the video?

 

[GaryE]

I don't see a molly swordtail hybrid. I see a chunky swordtail - a black swordtail. It doesn't look different from a lot of black swordtails in stores. So I'd need to know more about what the parents were, and how you believe this is a cross.

It wouldn't be a new species, as hybrids are common, in tanks and in nature (with closely related species). They can eventually contribute to the evolution of new species, usually after at least a few centuries of breeding in zones where biological species meet. In the very unlikely case that would be a sword/molly cross, it would probably be a mule - incapable of breeding. I'm really not convinced by the clip - I used to breed black swords and that looks like a late blooming male.

Value? None. If it is a real livebearer cross, you have a whole bunch of them, right? They don't have one baby at a shot. So you would need to set to work and set the strain, assuming it's fertile.

Before that though, you'd need to convince a few people that what you have is a real hybrid. I'll bounce this thread to @emeraldking , a well known and respected expert on livebearers who frequents this site.

In the meantime, if we disagree, we can explain why on both sides of the question without name calling and rage, right? I deleted some posts above because they added nothing positive to the discussion. I think @Chriseastham has made a basic identification mistake - easy enough to do if he or she is new to fishbreeding. And the idea of species is often misused and misunderstood here, I see varieties, breeds, species, and types used by members as if they were the same thing. It drives me crazy, but I may already be crazy to be bothered by it.

 

[Chriseastham]

I don't see a molly swordtail hybrid. I see a chunky swordtail - a black swordtail. It doesn't look different from a lot of black swordtails in stores. So I'd need to know more about what the parents were, and how you believe this is a cross.

It wouldn't be a new species, as hybrids are common, in tanks and in nature (with closely related species). They can eventually contribute to the evolution of new species, usually after at least a few centuries of breeding in zones where biological species meet. In the very unlikely case that would be a sword/molly cross, it would probably be a mule - incapable of breeding. I'm really not convinced by the clip - I used to breed black swords and that looks like a late blooming male.

Value? None. If it is a real livebearer cross, you have a whole bunch of them, right? They don't have one baby at a shot. So you would need to set to work and set the strain, assuming it's fertile.

Before that though, you'd need to convince a few people that what you have is a real hybrid. I'll bounce this thread to @emeraldking , a well known and respected expert on livebearers who frequents this site.

In the meantime, if we disagree, we can explain why on both sides of the question without name calling and rage, right? I deleted some posts above because they added nothing positive to the discussion. I think @Chriseastham has made a basic identification mistake - easy enough to do if he or she is new to fishbreeding. And the idea of species is often misused and misunderstood here, I see varieties, breeds, species, and types used by members as if they were the same thing. It drives me crazy, but I may already be crazy to be bothered by it.

 

[GaryE]

Chris - I saw the video the first time you posted, and see a late blooming male swordtail. It's the occasionally common black morph. They come and go in the hobby, as the mutation that makes them black also makes them prone to skin cancer.

A picture's worth a thousand words. but here, it doesn't answer any questions. I could easily buy a fish that looks like that for under ten bucks.When they bred in my tanks 40 years ago, I'd bought them for 99 cents!

 

[emeraldking]

To the poster:
In these vids no swordtail/molly hybrid is to be seen. I only see a balloon molly male and two Hamburg swordtails (also known as black swordtails). Mollies and swordtails can not breed with another. Not specifically the difference in genera will avoid an actual mating but their sexual organs are not compatible.
The mistake you've made is that you haven't thought of the fact that the female swordtail had already stored sperm packets from another mating or even matings. So, if you put these two species together and at some point the swordtail female got pregnant, she just used an amount of the stored sperm packets. You need to know that in ovoviviparous livebearers (where these two species belong to) when a female has stored sperm packets, she will decide when to release sperm packets to enable a new pregnancy. Nothing more, nothing less...

So, if you want to know the value of a hybrid in your tank between these two species, the value is the same as the store price till even zero because it's not a hybrid.

But I assume that you didn't know about the ability to store sperm packets in ovoviviparous livebearers. And that's no problem. But I do think that it would be good for you to read more about how it works with livebearers (both ovoviviparous and viviparous). We're all here to learn. No matter if you're a seasoned or a novice aquarist...

 

[emeraldking]

Flush that monstrosity down the toilet. It's not a new species, it's a hybrid. Species only exist in the wild.

No flushing needed in this case....
True, hybrids are no species.
In general, breeding forms within a species are strains. Same goes in the wild if populations of diffent locations of a specific species would have a specific phenotype. But knowing from own experience, most wild populations have multiple phenotypes. In such a case we can not speak about a strain. Yes, there are wild livebearers offered with one phenotype but the the basic reason for that is that when kept in captivity, breeders have chosen to focus and to enhance certain wild traits which makes them look like a part of those wild ones in the wild. While in reality other phenotypes of the same population won't make the market. The problem with a number of breeding strains that are the result of crossbreeding of 2 or more different species are technically no specific species. Only those breeding strains that are derived from one and the same species are still called species.

In my reply to the poster I've used the word "species" deliberately to make a distinct difference between two livebearer types. For I know that balloon mollies are the result of P.velifera, P.latipinna and even P.sphenops. Last one mentioned is when males only show a short dorsal.
Swordtails like the Hamburg swordtail is a result of crossbreeding swordtail x platy. Which makes them technically a hybrid strain. But hence that there are also swordtail and platy breeding forms that are derived from only their own species as well.