I have never had a shortbody angelfish happen in the thousands of fry I have produced in the past but I know someone who produced three of them. All three were from different parents but the parents were "cousins". So I does happen to pure-breds. This same person also had one fully tail-less fish. It looked just like the mutilated Convicts and Oscars you see that had their tails amputated as fry. We never determined if it was genetic or if the fry got a tail infection that ate it's tail off while it was still tiny, though as it grew up there was no scar tissue and it's scales covered the area so perfectly that I tend to think it was genetic. There was NO space between where the dorsal fin ended and the anal fin ended. Mutilated fish often have a short space that is plainly visible as it grows larger. So back to shortbody. I think it can and does happen all the time, most breeders just throw them out as culls so you rarely see them. But to end this discussion cleanly, it is possible to create a jellybean by hybridizing a convict and a parrot. It is also possible to create a jellybean by preserving a random mutation. Both will look almost the same but have different genetics. Jellybeans bred in Asia that are mass produced are more than likely pure convict as they do not have the male sterilization problems that convict/parrot hybrids likely have. Can we play nice now?
