Woah! Very cool! Was it a one-of-a-kind in the whole clutch? Or are there others? Would be very neat to figure out if it's predictably genetic, or an incubation quirk.
Woah! Very cool! Was it a one-of-a-kind in the whole clutch? Or are there others? Would be very neat to figure out if it's predictably genetic, or an incubation quirk.
Considering the homozygous form of jaguar carpets is leucistic (though that seems to work out as a fatal mutation), I would be willing to bet that this animal is expressing mosaic monosomy in those white areas. This is that the white areas on that animal lack a second allele at the jaguar locus, and as a result it appears that the homozygous form (leucistic) is expressed in those areas because of the presence of only one allele at the jaguar locus in those particular spots. I find this to be a curious case indeed, and I am interested to hear how this animal does considering the neurological issues associated with the jaguar mutation (and that which ultimately result in fatality in leucistic carpets). Thanks for sharing!