Rare by nature

Nothing in the species is labelled rare. Every founder is drawn from the same wild pool. Some looks are common from the start, some uncommon. A new founder can always be made, but it brings only this pool.

This colour is carried by many founders and shown by few: a rare variant often hides on one copy. These two show a common colour, and each carries the rare one. Two carriers, and it is suddenly there.

Number traits are drawn near the middle, so founders cluster there. The ends are reached by breeding: two founders that lean the same way, and a child past both.

Some variants are in no founder at all. They arise only by mutation, along routes the rules lay down, each needing the right background; some needing a variant that itself arose by mutation.

One birth can’t build a mutation on another, so deep looks take generations.

Every look has a name, read from four genes. Of 2,744 names, a founder can show 256; every other one must be bred. The first moeba to show a name is recorded as its first.

A small species, grown from its genome. Breed something nobody has seen. Every genome is written on a public ledger.