Wideband & Steel?

[rotdogz]

Hello hello! It's been awhile since I posted but I've come here with another question:

Does anyone know of or have pictures of a wideband steel rabbit? It is a far shot, I imagine, but am VERY curious what it might look like, since they have...pretty much opposite effects, if I understand correctly?

The question comes up since I've been looking into how steel works/interacts with things as a reference to a seemingly similar gene in cats; "grizzle", born from hybrids of domestic cats with melanistic jungle cats. (To clarify, I do not condone hybrid breeding, even if I am still interested in their genetics from a hypothetical standpoint.)

(The actual effect of grizzle on individual hairs phenotypically is not something I've been able to observe, but from the appearance of grizzle cats being somewhat similar to rabbits & it being born from melanistic jungle cats make me think it has a similar thing going of widening the eumelanin bands in agouti hairs.)

Anyway, cat genetics ramble aside, if you have theories on how they might interact together do also share! If you also have examples of non-red wideband agoutis & steels in general I would love that. (Especially individual hairs!!!) Non-red widebands especially are kind of hard to find pictures of.

 

[MsTemeraire]

I'm not sure you would see anything, since Steel doesn't have a yellow band for Wideband to work on, in the same way that Self (aa) also doesn't, and wideband can't be seen there.

For others reading, the Wideband gene increases the yellow/red band in the agouti pattern, pushing the phaeomelanin downwards and narrowing the slate base colour, and upwards towards the tips. Steel does the opposite, it decreases the yellow and eliminates the yellow band completely, extending black pigment along the length of the hair leaving just tipping on the hair ends, hence E locus, 'Extension' (of black).