Quote Originally Posted by JeffreH View Post
Yeah, unforunately miss Lynn is going to have to do a full out science fair project for us if she wishes to pursue it, LOL = )

Only way to truly tell will be holding back all offspring, keeping them separate, and allowing them to only breed with one another if they do not show the father's characteristics. Surely with the amount of offspring that are produced, an F2 baby will be born that shows the trait if it is genetic and Recessive. If not, then we can be fairly confident that it is not genetic... and Lynn just spent a lot of time setting up cricket palaces for 'nothing' =D

<3 Lynn for giving this a fair run, lol.

On another fun note about breeding insects for traits: did you know that that the species of silkworm (Bombyx mori) that we feed to our herps has been reared in captivity for so long for their silk that they would not thrive in the wild and require our care to survive? The moths lost the ability to fly, and the larvae literally sit there staring at the sky waiting for mulberry to fall upon them. Not to mention they are incredibly prone to infection and handling food (and them) usually must be done with sterile gloves... I bred them for awhile many years ago and found them most amusing, but they are just too much work and cost compared to roaches, heh.
Poor Lynn Lol! I think she will have fun doing the special breeding.

I did not know that we have bred that species completely into captivity. Odd to have an entire species domesticated. So does that mean that the adults pass their memories to the offspring? Since they probably wait for mulberry to fall to them because we bring it to them so they think if they wait it will just come to them. That's very odd. I'm not as surprised with the inability for adults to fly. There are similar animals that lose abilities in captivity from years of captive breeding. Flamingos for example in captivity if they are not fed a steady diet of the shrimp they eat in the wild they are white not pink. They get their pink color from the shrimp they eat and if they don't eat shrimp then there will be White flamingos and not Pink Flamingos. Diet and genetics. This has been an interesting thread.