Frosty...Sable? Chocolate?

[5dognightfarm]

Just picked up this doe at an auction to screw with my color genetics for fun. She looks like a frosty/ermine to me, what does the base color look like? Chocolate or sable? Can you have a sable frosty?

 

[Mckatie]

Just picked up this doe at an auction to screw with my color genetics for fun. She looks like a frosty/ermine to me, what does the base color look like? Chocolate or sable? Can you have a sable frosty?

View attachment 43858View attachment 43859you could have a chocolate chinchilla or a chocolate frosty(ermine) ... or? it will be interesting to see what the others say. I noticed you like the sables like I do.

@Alaska Satin @MsTemeraire

 

[Alaska Satin]

Just picked up this doe at an auction to screw with my color genetics for fun. She looks like a frosty/ermine to me, what does the base color look like? Chocolate or sable? Can you have a sable frosty?

Thanks for the call-out, @Mckatie

She's pretty. Yeah, I like calling her sable frosty aka sable ermine. You can definitely have both - the sable <c(chl)> is on the C locus, and the ermine/frosty is non-extension <ee> coming from alleles at the E locus. So if she's a sable frosty, she would be <A_B_c(chl)_D_ee>.

I'd go with sable rather than chocolate because the lacing on her ears - where I tend to go for base color reference - does not look at all like chocolate on my screen; it looks sepia.

 

[Mckatie]

Thanks for the call-out, @Mckatie

She's pretty. Yeah, I like calling her sable frosty aka sable ermine. You can definitely have both - the sable <c(chl)> is on the C locus, and the ermine/frosty is non-extension <ee> coming from alleles at the E locus. So if she's a sable frosty, she would be <A_B_c(chl)_D_ee>.

I'd go with sable rather than chocolate because the lacing on her ears - where I tend to go for base color reference - does not look at all like chocolate on my screen; it looks sepia.

I thought the ears were definitely a different colour on my screen as well
But more gray/blue. However, I'm on my phone. Are there many notable differences between chocolate and sable? I posted pictures of the kits (another post) and I thought they might be chocolate sable .
You are welcome!

P.S. so is ermine is detemined by chl with ee?

 

[5dognightfarm]

Thanks for the call-out, @Mckatie

She's pretty. Yeah, I like calling her sable frosty aka sable ermine. You can definitely have both - the sable <c(chl)> is on the C locus, and the ermine/frosty is non-extension <ee> coming from alleles at the E locus. So if she's a sable frosty, she would be <A_B_c(chl)_D_ee>.

I'd go with sable rather than chocolate because the lacing on her ears - where I tend to go for base color reference - does not look at all like chocolate on my screen; it looks sepia.

Awesome, thanks! I also posted another thread with some questions about some other oddballs I picked up...I'm just learning the details of color genetics and I think I started with the hard ones. If you can look at that other thread too, that would be awesome

 

[Alaska Satin]

I thought the ears were definitely a different colour on my screen as well
But more gray/blue. However, I'm on my phone. Are there many notable differences between chocolate and sable? I posted pictures of the kits (another post) and I thought they might be chocolate sable .
You are welcome!

On my screen, the whole the ear does look blue-ish, but if I look only at the tip, it looks sepia...but as you point out, screens each can have their own versions of colors.

The fur tipping on the forehead has that not-quite-black color as well, which could make you think chocolate - but again, the tip doesn't look chocolate.

For me, some colors are recognizable mostly by the process of elimination.

P.S. so is ermine is detemined by chl with ee?

Ermine, as I understand it, is usually considered non-extension chinchilla c(chd)_ + ee. However, it can also be c(chl)_ + ee, which would technically be non-extension sable chinchilla. The wrinkle there is that sable chinchilla isn't genetically a chinchilla: correctly, it's a sable agouti, since if it had a more dominant chinchilla c(chd), the c(chl) would not be expressed.

I suspect this wrinkle came about because because both chinchilla c(chd) and sable c(chl) block yellow-based pigments, which in an agouti means dark bands + pearl bands. In fact the c(chl) nomenclature refers to the sable allele's original moniker - "chinchilla light." It's just that while chinchilla c(chd) generally affects only the yellow pigments, sable c(chl) also affects the expression of the dark bands, mellowing them out from black to sepia. Interestingly, yet lower on the C scale, himalayan c(h) also has this effect on the dark pigment. In breeds that recognize the himalayan variety, this is implicitly acknowledged in many of their standards, which call for color, e.g. "as near black as possible" (Californian), "dark sepia, to appear black" (Satin), or "as dark sepia as possible" (Rex).

I have an ongoing discussion with a friend who breeds Czech Frosties about the issue of ermine being chin- vs sable-based. Czech Frosties are called frosty/ermine, and from what I gather from breeders they're assumed to be non-extension chins; but it seems to my eye their "veil" looks more sepia than black. When you get down to that little of color in the coat, though, it can be pretty hard to discern the difference. Unfortunately, she's less obsessive about genetics than I am and isn't interested in experimentally out-crossing her (very expensive and rare) Czech Frosties to see what's under the covers.