I just started playing today, and in the tutorial I got to look up the genes of my Roc, but I'm a little confused by what they mean.  For instance, even though I reasearched all the genes, under some of the columns there's still a "- - -" thing.  Why is that?

Second, why are some traits gray and others highlighted in green?

Looks like you researched at least one gene from each row, but not all of the genes. For every expressed trait there's two genes: one from the father and one from the mother. The dashes are the genes you haven't looked up yet.

There's one green and one grey gene in each row; the grey one is recessive and the green one is dominant. Only the green one is actually expressed in the pet. 

Yeah during the tutorial I had to do that "reasearch all genes" for one of my pets, so I guess that just gave me at least one thing for each column.

Thanks for explaining!

Chances are you ran out of vermillion, which is why you didn't research all of them. Also, check out the player guides section, you'll find a lot of resources there!

Okay, I'll check it out.  thank you!