First GMO Pet

GloFish first appeared on the market in 2003 and became the world’s first genetically modified pet. To give the fish a bright glowing color, scientists used the DNA of a tropical jellyfish. GloFish glows in both daylight and UV light. Initially, scientists created the fish to glow in a water polluted by industrial waste. But it happened so that businessmen from the Texas company Yorktown Technologies became interested in GloFish. Glowing fish literally blew up the aquarist market. Although the sale of GloFish is banned in California and the European Union, recently police in the Netherlands found about 1,500 lanternfish sold in various aquarium stores. GloFish has a competitor - it’s called “medaka“ or Japanese rice fish. A few years before the appearance of the glofish, Taiwanese scientists were able to develop a breed of medaka, painted in a luminous green color. Another genetically modified fish is salmon, bred by AquaBounty. Unlike GloFish, it does not glow at all, but it can grow all year round, and not in spring and summer, like its wild relatives. The salmon bred by AquaBounty has been specifically bred for commercial farming.