Harlequin gene question

[ipoGSD]

How does the harlequin gene work? Is it a dominat pr co-dom gene? If you have a litter with a harli parent, do all carry that gene? Or if they dont have the harlequin coloring, does that mean they dont have the gene?

Call pythons, I know co-dom genes work like, if you dont see a visual they dont carry it. Dom genes if one parent is let's say a pied, that was bred to a normal. All babies would come out 100% normal looking but would carry the gene.

 

[SableSteel]

It's mostly recessive to full extension (like chestnut) but dominant to non extension (like orange or tort). Full extension is only partially dominant sometimes though; and you can see some harlequin markings bleeding through on some rabbits, not all.

 

[akane]

There's 4 "E" locus genes you will probably ever see (there is a 5th extra dark gene mentioned but I never see it come up) and you can combine them in any pair. Aside from steel (Es) they are generally pretty simple with any combination having full extension (E) showing no change in color and then harlequin (ej) being recessive to "E" and dominant to nonextension (e). Eej and Ee will be normal full extension and ejej or eje will be harlequin while ee is nonextension torts or reds. The rest of the details just depends how the agouti, self, or any shaded genes contribute as well as broken in the case of tris. They do occasionally not come out that perfect though and odd expressions of the "E" locus genes happen sometimes.

 

[ladysown]

I find Harlequin to be a dominant gene. If you have it in the line will find some way to show up. It is not as bad as otter as otter will creep in years after you used it once in the line. Harlequin can be removed from a line if you're careful and really want to

 

[akane]

Otter reappears because it is recessive to agouti but can be bred out easly if you have otherwise mostly self rabbits because it is dominant to self. There are 3 genes like there are with harlequin. Every rabbit that gets an agouti gene doesn't show otter until you breed them to another rabbit that is hiding it or a self colored rabbit. It is both dominant and recessive but it depends what gene that acts on the same location you are talking about. Same with harlequin. Harlequin should most of the time only show with nonextension or breeding 2 harlequins or harlequins hidden by full extension so if you have lots of reds, torts, or so on it will be dominant. If you have lots of full extension colors it should be mostly recessive like otter is to agouti. Even when it shows up where it shouldn't you don't get a full harlequin pattern and should be fairly obvious it's the recessive harlequin gene not staying properly recessive.