Freshwater and Marine Aquarium, 2001 Dec. p.162, 164, 168.

Veiltail Mollies — Past and Present
Text and Photos by Glenn Y. Takeshita


Past:

The Wood Veil Mollie was introduced to the hobby by Gene Wolfsheimer's article "Latest in Mollies" which appeared in the Aquarium Journal in the June 1965 issue. This article was then followed by another article "A New Molly" written by the developer of the Wood Veiltail Mollie, John A. Wood in The Aquarium magazine in March 1968. Both articles talked about how the strain was developed from a female with a slightly enlarged tail in a Sphenops Mollie strain. This female was bred to several males that had very long ventral fins. This cross resulted in young that had veiltails that were larger than their mother. This F1 Veiltail young were then inbred to give John A. Wood his succeeding generations of Wood Veiltail Mollies. The most striking feature of his Veiltail Mollie strain was the normal sized gonopodium of the F1 male Veiltail. This was really fortunate for Mr. Wood for he could inbreed the siblings without worrying about the problem of infertility of Mollies with long gonopodiums. Because the longest and largest Veils were bred to each other, the very long gonopodiums began to appear in succeeding generations of young Veils. Today all Veil males have the long gonopodiums which creates a problem because female Veils cannot be bred to Veil males. The females have to be bred to siblings which are not Veils which have a normal sized gonopodium. This crossing generally reduces the percentage of Veiltail young. I personally believe that some of the Veil males with the long gonopodium are able to fertilize the female Veils. But most of the males with the long gonopodium are not able to fertilize the females although they are fertile and not sterile. The very long and abnormally shaped gonopodiums are not able to make the needed connection to fertilize the females. Mr. Wood made crosses to Sailfin Mollies which resulted in Sailfin Veil Mollies. He also crossed the Sphenop Veil Mollies to highly colored Liberty Mollies to create his Taffy Veil Mollies. He also had other colored veil mollies. I remember his Chocolate and Lemon Veiltail Mollies well. According to Dr. J. Norton, the veiltail in mollies is due to a single dominant gene. Gene modifiers dictate the different veiltail shapes that do occur in these mollies.

I can't believe that the Wood strain of Veiltail Mollie is extinct today because John Wood sold hundreds and hundreds or maybe thousands of Veiltail Mollies in the 1960's and 1970's. I tried for two years to get some Wood strain Veil Mollies in 1997 and 1998 and l could not find anyone who had some. I did get eight female Veil Mollies from Mrs. Mary C. White of Akron, Ohio. These were young from a pair she had bought from the A.L.A. convention in 1996. But when I raised them to adults they looked more like the Orient strain of Veil Mollies. I did cross these females with some large Red-Orange Albino Sailfin Mollies with huge velifera-type dorsals which gave me gray mottled young but the females and males looked more like the Orient Veil Mollies instead of the Wood strain.

Dr. J. Norton developed some exceptionally beautiful Veiltail Mollies by carefully thought-out hybridizations. These hybrid Veiltail Mollies had very large symmetrical tails that were breathtaking to see. Dr. J. Norton's Veiltail Mollies not only had large and beautiful veiltails but they were also beautifully colored.

Dr. Joanne Norton was the last one who I knew was working with the Wood Veil Mollies. A friend of mine Mr. Al Honda did buy some Wood Veil Mollies from Dr. Norton in 1992 or 1993 but he lost the Veil Molly strain. Since Dr. Joanne Norton is no longer working with these Mollies, no one has any in the continental United States or the rest of the world. I inquired about the Wood Veil Mollies with the ALA members but no one knows who has them. I even called Derek Lambert in England. They all believe the Wood Veil Mollies are today extinct.

Present:

The past two years I have worked with some Orient Veil Sailfin Mollies that a tropical fish farmer in Kahuku, Oahu who was producing them for the tropical fish hobby. I did get one female from that strain that had a veiltail that was as good as the Wood strain. I lost this female without getting any young from her. But most of this strain had tails that were asymmetrical veils. This is when I began asking about the origin of the Orient Veiltail Mollies. Nobody I talked to knew if the Orient Veil Mollies was a separate mutation that occurred irrespective of the Wood mutation. But the more I looked into the origin and the timing of the appearance of the Orient Veil Mollies, the more I am convinced that the Orient Veil Mollie strain was developed from the Wood Veil Mollies. The Orient Veil Mollies have been available since 1982 according to a good friend and Hawaiian tropical fish importer — Tyler Takehara.

The shape of the veiltail is different because the Orient Veil Mollies were mass-produced for the commercial market; therefore, careful selective breeding was not undertaken, resulting in a differently shaped veiltail. The Orient Veiltail Mollies have a tail that can be round to a perfect delta tail. The majority of the Orient Veils have a round shaped tail, therefore they are generally called guppy-tail mollies in the continental US.

I bought and carefully inspected one bag (100 fishes) of the Orient Balloon Veil Mollies. The black and gold color varieties of the Balloon Veil Mollies had pretty good shaped veiltails; two females were large lyre-veils. Evidently, very careful selective breeding was done with this strain to improve the veiltail and still keep the balloon body shape that the Orient breeders seem to love. I personally don't care for the Balloon Mollies' body shape. Also, the Balloon Veil Mollies give very few young so that working to improve the strain takes a lot of time.

I have also bought and inspected carefully one bag (125 fishes) of Orient Sailfin Veiltail Mollies. I was really surprised because there were about six females that had tails that looked like the Wood strain. Also there were about six large tailed lyre-veils. This was very interesting for the breeders accidentally or purposely bred for the lyre-veil mollies. The lyre-veiltails looked very good because the lyretail gene gave the spread to the round veiltail resulting in a delta shaped tail that was large with two small tips (top and bottom) on the tail. This combination gave some symmetry to the veiltail which looked very much like the Wood strain veil. The downside of the lyre-veiltail is when the lyre-veil is the small type, then you will have a problem because you will not be able to tell a small lyre-veil from a large lyretail. When I carefully inspected the bag of Orient Sailfin Veil Mollies, I am 99% sure now that Orient strain of Veil Mollies was developed from the Wood strain of Veiltail Mollies. Because of the mass production without attention to careful selective breeding and the gene pool, the shape of the Veiltail has changed over time from a delta shaped tail to a more round shaped tail. By careful selective breeding of the Orient Veil Mollies, the tail shape can be improved to look like the original Wood Veils or better. Artificial insemination of certain selected individuals as breeders can shorten the time for this improvement to occur.

Also crossing the Orient Veil females to some wild mollies either Sailfin or Sphenops (Liberty Molly), the possibility of getting Veil Mollies with normal sized gonopodiums is a real possibility. If this is accomplished, then breeding the Veils will be easier to mass produce. But this time, careful attention should be taken not to inbreed only the longest Veils to prevent the development of the long gonopodium problem. The ideal is to breed Veil to Veil and use males that have normal sized gonopodiums.

I am at present crossing the Orient Veil females to wild P. latipinna, Liberty Mollie (P. sphenops), and a hybrid (probably Liberty Mollie X L. vittata). I have some young from the wild P. latipinna, X Orient Veil cross. I cannot wait to see what these young veils will look like. The Veil female with the hybrid Sphenops is also pregnant. I can't wait to see the young of this cross. Also, the Liberty Mollie X Orient Veil female (yellow and black colored) is also carrying young. All three crosses will be very interesting. I have my fingers crossed that a few of the Veil males will have a normal sized gonopodium and will be fertile. The very inbred Orient Veil strain was bred to wild populations purposely, to change the gene pool so that certain characters could be changed or improved.

Since the Wood Veil Mollie strain is extinct, I will try to recreate a Veiltail Mollie strain by careful selective breeding of the Orient Veil Mollie strain. Hopefully, I can develop a strain that will have a symmetrical veiltail with the needed gene modifiers to have a huge veiltail that does not droop. I intend to select females with a thick caudal peduncle so that the fish can hold up the huge veiltail.

Also the development of a large lyre-veil strain may be desirable to improve the overall looks of the Veiltail strain.

I decided to work with the Sailfin Veiltail Mollies because they are beautiful and magnificent long-finned fishes that always keep their fins and tail fully spread all the time. Many long-finned tropicals are not very showy when compared to the Veiltail Mollies. Also I decided to try my hand in improving the strain because the Wood strain is now extinct and the Orient Veil Mollies is the only survivor of that strain, and needs much work in improving the shape of the tail. As far as I am concerned, too many strains of beautiful tropicals have been lost to the ravages of time. It is our duty as hobbyists to keep these beautiful tropical fish going so that the future generation of hobbyists can also enjoy them.

We hobbyists in Hawaii developed many of the beautiful and fancy livebearers in the 1960's and 1970's for the hobby to enjoy. But it breaks my heart that many of the Hawaiian strains of fancy livebearers are extinct. I remember the good old days when you could walk into any pet shop in Hawaii and the tanks were just full of fancy livebearers — this is not the case today. I really miss the excitement of finding something new to add to my tanks when I visited the pet shops weekly.

For me the excitement that keeps me in the hobby is to develop a new strain of fish that nobody in the world has. This is the driving force that keeps me in the hobby although it can be hard work and much frustration at times.

I want the Sailfin Veiltail Mollies to be around so that my grandchildren can enjoy them like I did. This is why I keep plugging away on them. I also promised Mr. John A. Wood that I will keep his strain going as long as I can. The Veiltail Mollies was a favorite of Dr. Joanne Norton — now that she is not able to keep this strain going, I will try my best to continue her work with the Veiltail Mollies. "Aloha."