Fig. 5

Phenotype of developing and regenerating caudal fins of alf^ty86d mutant fishes. (A) Developing rays of the caudal of a 30.5-mm standard length (S.L.) alf^ty86d fish. Observe that some segmentation processes (black arrow) are not coincident in both contralateral hemirays (white arrows). (B) Developing rays of the caudal fin of a 27-mm S.L. alf^ty86d fish. Bifurcation processes (asterisk) may not occur in all the rays but they are symmetrical in both hemirays. Rays profile are shown with double arrowheads. (C) Developing ray of the caudal fin of a 27.5-mm S.L. alf^ty86d fish, showing a strong phenotype. Segmentation is almost absent in the complete ray. (D) Bifurcation (asterisk) in a 26-mm S.L. strong phenotype fish does not occur in all the rays. (E) Initial regenerating rays (14 days post-operation) in the caudal fin of an alf^ty86d mutant 27 mm S.L. adult fish. Observe that many partial segmentation processes (a–c arrows) occur in different positions irrespective of the contralateral pattern. (F) Fifty-four days post-operation, in the same regenerate region as the previous figure many partial segmentation processes (a–c arrows) disappeared as the lepidotrichia grows in thickness. Only the initially most conspicuous ones remain. Inset shows loss of hemi-joint registration (black vs. white arrows). Scale bar represents 250 μm (A–D and inset in panel F); 500 μm (E, F).