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| Steel and Harlequin? | |
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| Tweet Topic Started: Jun 1 2016, 01:22 PM (292 Views) | |
| NeuBunny | Jun 1 2016, 01:22 PM Post #1 |
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Genetics Geek!
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A friend on one of the facebook forums posed an interesting puzzle. She sent me a series of photos of a buck ... as a kit he looked fully black (dark inside the ears and dark belly), as a junior (guessing about 6-8 weeks in the photo) he looked like a gold-tipped steel (very even, dark with no agouti marks, but light gold tipping very even over the whole animal), as an adult he looks like a very unevenly colored castor - partial eye circles, nose markings, 'muddy' belly (not light enough for a good castor, but definitely lighter than the sides/back), but still fully dark in the ears; parts of his coat look steel very dark with just tipping, but other parts really look much more like castor with a normal reddish-tan midband. His parents are a tri dam (from harlequin/tri lines) and a black sire (from all black lines, but looking at the photo of that one, I would have guessed him self chin ... just a bit light and 'off' - and others have told her he is likely a self-steel). Siblings in the litter include 2 normal castor, 4 blacks, 2 broken blacks and a 'cali' (which I assume means pointed, but looking at the picture I'm not so sure - I would have called it ermine, but eyes weren't open yet in the photo, so perhaps just chilled). She also bred this buck to a broken chinchilla doe ... kits are 2 REW, 2 black, 2 chinchilla, 1 that looks chinchilla except it has dark ears and a muddy belly, and 2 brokens (1 looks chin, 1 castor, both with white inside the ears in a definite agouti pattern). 1) can you tell a self steel (aaEs-) from a regular black? Would it have that 'off' color I associate with self-chins? 2) what does Esej look like? my expectation was that it would look like a steel with darker solid black patches ... so not really fitting this buck at any point. 3) Ese? 4) Could the buck just be a harlequinized castor? Would that alone make the belly/ears go dark if you 'got lucky' with patch placement? Could it account for the changes with growth/molt? 5) If the 2 chinchilla kits continue to look 'perfectly normal' how likely is it that they would be hiding ej? (that is, how likely would one be to 'miss' seeing harlequinized pattern - does it always show on Eej?) |
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| twr | Jun 2 2016, 06:00 PM Post #2 |
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POWITH!!
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My guess from your description is that the buck in question is harlequinised steel, A_B_C_D_Esej. I'm assuming that the darker and lighter areas are forming a harlequin-like pattern (on top of the darker ears and belly). If not, then this might be just a steel. I initially wondered if torted harlequin could be involved somehow but there is no way to get ticking and torting at the same time. No, steel should not cause 'off' colour (or any other visible difference) in a non-agouti (i.e. aa) self. But there's no reason the sire can't be a self chin hiding steel. Esej should look like steel with darker areas (solid and/or brindled as in a normal ej_), exactly as you expected, but IMO fitting this buck reasonably well. Bear in mind that steel can be pretty variable, anywhere from false self (an A_Es_ that is indistinguishable from aaE_) through to an A_EsE that could almost pass for A_E_. Given that you're talking about castor, perhaps these rabbits are rexed, which I think will tend to make steel look darker than it would on a normal coat. Also steel can start off darker and lighten as it reaches adulthood. Usually described as being very dark, especially on the head, e.g. like this: But I struggle to make sense of that from a biology point of view, so personally I'm not sure if this is universal behaviour or a quirk due to modifiers in certain lines. No. It might work for the ears but I'd expect dark belly markings to also be visible on the flanks and if the belly markings were brindled at all you'd also see harlequin striping on the belly as variation in darkness of the brindling. I don't think you'd get significant changes with growth/moult (beyond the usual one of very young chestnut kits looking otter). I couldn't put a number on this but the pattern is definitely not visible 100% of the time even in eje. Given how much harder it is to spot ej on an agouti background the odds of ej hiding in an Eej will be higher, but IMO probably not high enough to make it likely to be hiding in both chins and the two agouti-based brokens. For now, my bet is that at least two of these four will have subtle harlequin marking somewhere and that that will mean that all four do have ej. I think this guy is a silver-tipped steel. Hope that helps. Usual caveats apply, plus I'm working without pictures. EDIT - revised intro and rewrote my answer to q5 because I missed the significance of the lack of apparent ej in this litter. A close inspection of the buck to distinguish between banding/tipping and brindling should be very informative (I'm assuming that so far you've only got the overall look of the animal to go on). Edited by twr, Jun 2 2016, 07:07 PM.
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| NeuBunny | Jun 3 2016, 08:07 AM Post #3 |
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Genetics Geek!
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Yes, I only have pictures too, not even rabbits I've had my hands on to inspect in person... I did ask to share her pictures, but haven't heard back yet. On a related note ... how does wideband (ww) interact with steel? I've wondered whether some of the variability in Ese rabbits might have to do with whether or not w is coming along with the e. |
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| twr | Jun 3 2016, 01:33 PM Post #4 |
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POWITH!!
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I've not heard or read anything about this but I think it is reasonable to assume that ww wideband will widen the Es band just like it does for the normal agouti band, making a lighter steel. No idea if wideband carrier (Ww) would be visible on steel, but my guess is that it wouldn't be. Now that you've mentioned it, it also occurs to me that the rufous modifiers involved in reds could make for darker steels. I'm not convinced that the term "wideband" as used on forums is referring to the same thing as the wideband of genetic texts. The former is usually described as always creating both wider bands and an orange belly, whereas in Robinson, wideband is described a only widening the agouti band, with orange belly included under rufous modifiers. My suspicion is that when wideband is used on forums people are unknowingly referring to the group of modifiers that make a fawn (in the non-dilute sense) into an orange rather than to a single gene. I've asked about this a couple of times before but no-ones ever responded, not even to tell me its a stupid idea. |
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| NeuBunny | Jun 3 2016, 03:49 PM Post #5 |
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Genetics Geek!
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This article is one of the best I've read ... with regard to the effect of wideband (ww) on chinchilla (with a few notes on other agouti and tan pattern). http://www.rabbitgeek.com/file/amchinwideband.pdf |
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| twr | Jun 4 2016, 07:42 AM Post #6 |
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POWITH!!
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Thanks for that. When I read it it seemed rather familiar, so perhaps you've shown it to me before and I forgot. If so, I apologise. My interpretation of that article is that it is consistent with the classical genetics texts. Although it does talk about an effect on belly colour, my extrapolation of what it says to an orange/fawn is that wideband will make the difference between a nice clean orange belly and an orangish belly spoilt by blue undercolour showing through. Nothing in that article suggests to me that wideband would make the difference between an orangeish belly and a whiteish one. |
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| NeuBunny | Jun 6 2016, 08:31 AM Post #7 |
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Genetics Geek!
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yes, that's my take too -- it affects blue versus orange/white not orange versus white. |
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