Researcher Creates Supermale Bluegill

But a quarter of them are "super males", wrote Doug Caruso of the ColumbusDispatch.

They're the key to growing ponds full of all-male bluegill. Since male bluegill grow twice as large as females, fish farmers can provide larger fillets for people's dinner plates. That would mean larger profits.

Han-Ping Wang, principal research scientist at Ohio State University's aquaculture lab in Piketon, is close to achieving that goal using a process that starts, oddly enough, with turning all the fish into females.

He introduced estrogen to tanks of bluegill that had a natural population of about half male and half female. In the right amounts, the hormone turns all the fish into egg-producing females.

TheFishSite News Desk

Sign up for our
regular news updates

Related news items:

•    Tilapia-Skin Gelatine Next for Aquafinca
•    Accessing Markets Directly To Improve Payments
•    Cod with Personal Identity Numbers
•    Peru Triples Aquaculture Output over Five Years
•    Time Honours Fish Breeding Invention

Related News Categories: Breeding and Reproduction, Other Species of Fish, Genetics

Sign up for our
regular news updates

More Fish Industry News

•   November Agriculture And Fisheries Council Agenda
•   Potential For Fishmeal-Free Salmon
•   Fish Wholesaling Industry Research
•   College To Boost Fish Farming
•   Consultation On Net And Trap Licences
•   Fish farming in Paddy Fields Takes Off
•   Tilapia-Skin Gelatine Next for Aquafinca
•   VIV China Reflects Development of Chinese Industry
•   Protection for Island Cockle Industry
•   Accessing Markets Directly To Improve Payments