Some New Eye-Colour Changes in Gammarus cheureuxi Sexton. Part I

Extract

1. In a large number of experiments with Gammarus chevreuxi when the animals were kept under similar conditions at temperatures ranging from 20° to 28° C., twenty instances occurred in which red-eyed mutations appeared independently and simultaneously. The most important of these (Mutant Stock V) is described in detail in this paper.

2. The Red eyes which have arisen in this Stock V and in the four previous Stocks, I to IV, have proved to be all genetically distinct from one another.

3. There are at leadt two different classes of “red-eye,” the one simple, the other with intermediate stages. Mutant Stock V, here described, represents the second type. Differences in the method of origin of the two classes have been pointed out.

4. The inheritance of the red-eyedness of the second class—namely, that in which intermediate stages and various colour changes occur—is of a complicated kind. For an interpretation in terms of Mendelian genes, even if allowance is made for an extent of variation in members of one particular genotype, clearly several of them are involved. Further, there must be considerable interplay of one kind or another among the different genes.

5. Although so many different colour shades have appeared in Mutant Stock V, all can be interpreted in terms of varying concentrations of two pigments—the black and the red. Dilute black pigment with little or no red gives a purple eye.