Genetic analysis of simple water escape behavior: test of a major-gene hypothesis.

Recombinant inbred (RI) strains, progenitor strains, and reciprocal F₁ hybrids were used to test the hypothesis that the recessive condition of the albino gene, when homozygous, exerts a major influence on simple water escape performance in the T maze. The resulting RI strain distribution pattern did not support this hypothesis. One pigmented RI strain exhibited water escape performance which was inferior to that of albino strain BALB/cBy. Two albino RI strains exhibited superior performance relative to progenitor strain BALB/cBy and were equal in performance to two of the best performing pigmented RI strains. Implications of this finding for studies involving color coat mutants and albino strains and stocks are discussed.