Are you assuming the "Natural" looking clowns just popped up looking the way they do in the ocean? I can assure you they didn't start out looking that way. Evolution did that to them, it just took a lot longer than breeders are doing with them currently. BTW there's plenty of oddities within a particular species in the ocean as it is, traits that exist within a species like say clownfish that naturally happen in the ocean.
Just because a breeder breeds towards a specific trait that naturally already exists doesn't mean that the end result will render that fish in this case disease prone or unable to function properly. Like another person already mentioned you may very well have a dog as a pet and in that case humans have played a role to make that animal more pleasing whether it came in the form of temperament or aesthetics.
My comment about dog breeds wasn't very clear. Sorry about that.
I think a number of dog breeds suck and the original creators of those breeds should be have been penalized somehow.
"Knowing when to say when" doesn't just apply to alcohol abuse.
[emoji53]
We own a collection of each of the colors of the Glofish tetras. (Yes, I am financially supporting the "deformaties" industry) And a regular black tetra as a baseline. Black original is 4+ years old.
The beautiful genetic mashup color pops live for about a year-and-a-half.
Something usually gets sacrificed when something else gets added/changed.
Right now (AFAIK) the clownfish breeders are still doing traditional cross breeding and back crossing.
Some of the results are stunning and quite beautiful!
But I always wonder what traits are sacrificed and what defects are being amplified in the process.
(Many pure white dogs go deaf. Even without creating obvious physical deformaties, overall size, elongated limbs or trunk, something as simple as a color change can have unexpected results)
Some alterations can be useful.
Salmon that grow twice as fast to bring to market much sooner are intriguing.
As 'food' fish, the changes made may not be as critical.
As fish that will inevitably 'escape' to wild population, who knows.
(Some of the current possible rules for approval involve only growing the genetically altered salmon in landlocked areas far from the ocean. We will see how long that lasts)
Science and technology are awesome!
What we do with them is usually awesome. Not always.
