color of chinchilla rescue

[graduation]

http://chinchillarescue.org/rescues.html
In the single females section, it says Smokie is a charcoal? I'm not sure, but I think she's a standard.

 

[Stackie]

She definitely isn't a charcoal. Looks like a standard to me as well, maybe a light ebony but I can't see the belly all that well.

 

[ticklechin]

That rescue calls mosaics piebalds and white chins, albinos and dark brown chins, sables, they have their own color chart. I don't show so I am not totally sure if those terms are used, but I never heard of them anywhere else but there.

 

[graduation]

Oh my gosh.
Wow.

 

[kimbt622]

I was going to say, I've never heard of the color "charcoal" for a chin. If she has the same color belly as the rest of her body she's probably a hetero ebony... maybe light or medium. It looks like her feet are white though so she's probably a standard.

 

[aznmexaggie]

There are no true charcoals in the US with the exception of a few ranchers who supposedly are working on them and keeing the lines pure but they are hush-hush about it. There are true charcoas in the UK. There are many "breeders" in the US though who incorrectly call ebonies charcoals.

 

[eroomlorac]

I have a question prompted by a previous post on this thread. I know the difference between a hetero and homo beige but what is the difference between a hetero and homo ebony? Is it an actual color difference you can see or is it only for breeding purposes? I have a "extra dark ebony". She's black with a black belly. Does that make her a homo ebony? Then one of my rescue girls is a medium ebony. Would that make her a hetero ebony?

 

[aznmexaggie]

Ebonies technically shouldnt be called hetero or homo because the phenotype is not caused just by one gene. However, to make it simple, a solid black chin is a homo ebony and all other varying shades of gray bellied chins are hetero ebonies (even though technically they are not heterozygous or homozygous for ebony because it is not caused by a single gene)

 

[Riven]

To elaborate, homo and hetero refer to the alleles on the color section off the chromosome. Homo means both spots hold the same gene, the homo beige can only offer the beige gene to it's offspring. Hetero means it carries one, a hetero beige carries a beige gene and a standard gene and can give either to it's offspring.

Ebonies don't work as simply as that, and there for aren't really hetero or homo. If you took a "homo" ebony and bred it to another "homo" ebony you should get nothing but "homo" ebonies. This term is used often for the extra darks, but it is a misnomer.

 

[RDZCRanch]

I have a question prompted by a previous post on this thread. I know the difference between a hetero and homo beige but what is the difference between a hetero and homo ebony? Is it an actual color difference you can see or is it only for breeding purposes? I have a "extra dark ebony". She's black with a black belly. Does that make her a homo ebony? Then one of my rescue girls is a medium ebony. Would that make her a hetero ebony?

A homo ebony is described in show books as an animal with every hair shiny black. This means that if the chinchilla is an ebony, there can be no grey hairs anywhere on the body. If your girl has any lighter coloring, no matter how minimal she would be considered a hetero.

Like Sumiko said, those terms are used incorrectly with chinchillas that show the ebony coloration since more than one gene is involved to produce the wrap around coloring. Usually you'll see them called light, medium, dark medium, dark and extra dark which is a much more accurate color definition than homo or hetero.

Homozygous means the animal carries two of the same genes(can be recessive or dominant) and heterozygous means the animal carries one recessive gene and one dominant gene. Chinchillas follow a wild type with their genetics so there is no standard gene. There is a string of mutations and when the mutations are not present, you will have a standard. When the mutations are present, you get whatever mutation that is.

For example... S=sapphire, V=violet, A=black velvet, B=beige, and W=white

A standard's genetic code is:

SSVVaabbww

A white's genetic code is:

SSVVaabbWw

So...a standard simply has no mutation in the genetic code, but there is NO standard "gene" to be passed on or that can be recessive or dominant.

 

[mishalaa]

As Tab said, the standard is the wild type, it does not have a gene but rather carries the possibility for all mutations, and is standard when those mutations are absent.

Black is Blbl, not A. BlBl would not exist because of the lethal factor, and blbl would be a standard.

Similarly, beige is Pw, not B. B is for the charcoal series of mutations (not sure how blacks got a B), P is for the pink-eyed series. A homo beige is PwPw, hetero beige Pwpw, and standard pwpw.

None of the current mutations that affect color are on the same locus which is why we have hybrids (Pink whites, brown velvets, TOV white sapphire wraps, etc) so it is not as though there is one "color section" on one chromosome, there are several.

Charcoals, piebalds, and albinos are actual mutations seen in chinchillas. However, they are very rare and I'm not even sure the latter two exist anymore. Sable is a different animal completely.

Piebald and albino are not terms used at shows - if those animals were shown they would be considered whites (even though they are genetically different than the common Wilson white - they are both recessive - phenotypically, they would be considered white and shows classify according to phenotype).

Charcoal is a term used at shows, but only as an alternate name to Ebony. Charcoal is an older term than ebony and used to be used in reference to any solid bellied mutation - the way ebony is used today. It has now been pretty much replaced by ebony in reference to phenotype, but is still used in reference to one specific mutation - a recessive ebony mutation.

The genetic notation for charcoal (Broucke charcoal) is B - since it is recessive a charcoal is bb, standard charcoal carrier is Bb, and standard BB.