Leopard Patterns - Information and open discussion

[Totina]

This is a place for everyone who is interested in the leopard pattern and how it works in the game, whether you are currently working with it or not.
The goal is to collect all our knowledge in one place and to discuss the results openly to help each other on the way to a full leopard pattern.

Up-to-date
The text written in this post will be kept up-to-date with whatever knew information is presented in this thread. This is going to make it much easier for anyone to jump right into the discussions and still have any clue of what we have figured out so far.
The second post in this thread will be kept updated with examples of gene expressions and other visual effects that we find interesting and want to figure out (or have figured out) the mechanics of.

What is allowed?
It will be allowed to link to studs and horses for sale, as long as they are relevant to any leopard project.
Asking for a stud or sale with specific characteristics is also allowed if it will help someone to progress further with certain traits (like coat colour, amount of white in a certain area or density/size of spots).

Please don't ask to buy your first leopard horse here since this could add up to a number of "garbage posts" that don't add anything to the discussions/projects.

The information available
Original post on leopard patterns: http://www.horseworldonline.net/forum/v ... f=2&t=4135

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What is known:

* The LP switch gene - is what causes any leopard patterns to appear.
> Only 1 gene with 2 alleles, which means two variations of the LP gene exists: "on" and "off".
__- One copy of the "on" variation gives sharp edges between white and solid coloured areas.
__- Two copies of the "on" variation give small spots and "freckled" edges between white and solid coloured areas.
__- All horses with at least one copy will varnish roan with age, even without any pattern genes.

* Pattern genes - create the large white patterns on the horse.
> 26 genes with 2 to 4 alleles, which means there are 26 different genes for white pattern with 2 to 4 variations
> each.
__- All breeds in the Adoption Centre can carry one or more of the pattern genes even if they are not visible.
__- 2 breeds from the Adoption Centre can carry the PATN1 gene, which causes the most white on the body.
__- It has been confirmed that black based horses (including bay/brown) are less likely to express extended white pattern compared to chestnut based horses.

* Spot size genes - determine the size of the spots.
> 2 genes with 4 and 2 alleles, which means one gene has 4 variations and the other has 2 variations.
__- There are 4 different sizes of spots.
__- All breeds from the Adoption Centre carry the normal size gene.
__- 2 breeds are hiding the medium and large spot genes. Forest horse is one of them.
__- Horses can express two different sizes of spots at the same time to various degrees. Often normal, medium or
__- large combined with small spots.

* Spot density genes - increase or decrease the density of spots.
> 1 gene with 100 elleles, which means only 1 gene exists with 100 different variations.
__- All breeds from the Adoption Centre carry sparse density.
__- 2 breeds are hiding genes for extremely dense spotting. One of them is arabian.

* Snowflake density genes - determines if a horse develops snowflakes and the density of them.
> 2 genes with 3 to 100 alleles. (Possibly) one gene with 3 variations and the other with 100 variations.
__- All breeds from the AC can develop snowflake spots.
__- 1 breed from the AC is hiding high density genes and another breed is hiding extreme density genes.
__- Snowflakes are not visible from birth but develop with age.

* Varnish roan genes - determine how much a horse will varnish when carrying the "on" variation of the LP gene.
> 20 genes with 2 to 100 alleles, which means there are 20 different genes with 2 to 100 variations each.
__- Some breeds from the AC are prone to more varnish and others are more subtle.
__- Varnish roan is not present at birth, it will express itself more as the horse grows older.

* Appaloosa bronzing gene - is a gene that makes a black coat bronze out with age to look more like a chestnut.
> 1 gene with 100 alleles, which means there is only 1 gene with 100 variations of bronzing.
__- The bronzing gene also affects black areas in bay/brown horses.

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Thoughts and progress:
This section is dedicated to collect our thoughts and observations about each subject connected to the leopard complex, whether it is spot size/density or patterns. Anything written under each category is open for further experimentation and discussion in order to be confirmed or debunked.

* The LP switch gene - 1 gene/2 alleles __________________________________________________________
1 - This one is pretty much set in stone already and I doubt there could be anything else not yet figured out.


* Pattern genes - 26 genes/2 to 4 alleles __________________________________________________________
1 - The PATN1 gene seems to be pretty uncommon in the two breeds that could hide it, whateveer breeds they might be. Since it is easier to get a near leopard pattern in a chestnut horse than a black based horse I suspect that the PATN1 gene is the key to more white on black/bay/brown coats.
[ Examples in the next post. ]

2 - If one of the 26 genes is a PATN1 gene, the other 25 genes could possibly be coding for white in different areas of the body and they might even be dependent on each other in order to be expressed.
[ Examples can be seen in the next post. ]

3 - Pattern genes seem to express themselves slightly different depending on if the horse has one or two copies of the "on" variation of the LP gene.
[ Examples shown in the next post. ]

4 - Belgians could possibly be hiding the full PATN1 gene but it is very rare. Seems to offer genes for white spread for the under-stomach area.

5 - Caspians seems to offer a lot of white spread.

6 - Shetlands seem to offer white spread over hips and back legs. Possibly similar pattern for tarpans, if not sligthly less.


* Spot size genes - 2 genes/2 and 4 alleles _________________________________________________________
1 - Only two genes and 4 different sizes of spots. My guess is that the gene with 4 alleles/variations code for each size of spots; small, normal, medium and large and the other gene with only 2 alleles/variations is a "switch" gene that determines if a horse will express two different sized spots or not.
[ Examples can be found in the next post. ]

2 -Belgians seem to offer genes for medium spots.

3 - Przewalskis seem to offer the smallest sized spots.


* Spot density genes - 1 gene/100 alleles __________________________________________________________
1 - My experimentations seem to point to incomplete dominant features of the spot density genes. If one parent has high density and the other low density, the horses tend to get density in between both parents.
[ Examples in the next post. ]

2 - Arabians may offer a different patterning.

3 - Przewalskis may offer less density of spots.


* Snowflake density genes - 2 genes/3 to 100 alleles ________________________________________________
1 - Only two genes for snowflake. Is one of them similar to a switch gene with 3 variations? Need opinions/experiments on this.

2 - Horses that possibly carries both genes for snowflake can sometimes express a blanket pattern. Could it be due to a specific allele?

3 - NABs seem to offer snowflake spreading and turmenes seem to offer the most snowflake spreading/density.


* Varnish roan genes - 20 genes/2 to 100 alleles ____________________________________________________
1 - Shetlands and tarpans seem to offer extreme varnish.


Appaloosa bronzing gene - 1 gene/100 alleles ______________________________________________________
-

[Totina]

* Pattern genes - 26 genes/2 to 4 alleles

1 - Examples of what a chestnut based horse looks like compared to a black based horse with similar set up of pattern genes.




2 - Example of how genes could be coding for different areas is how none of my horses have expressed any more white on the upper parts of the right front leg than this:

I am working on this, trying to get the genes from a stallion with a lot of white on the upper part of the right front leg:

I have done this with different areas on the horses body and so far it seems to be somewhat correct that genes code for different areas on the body.


3 - As mentioned above that front leg has been tricky to get white on if the horses only have one copy of the "on" variation of the LP gene. If they have two copies then their upper right front leg shows an extended white area, which would suggest that genes can look different depending on the LP switch gene.
This horse with two copies of the LP "on" gene show a lot of white on that right front leg


While the parents (both with only one copy of the LP "on" gene) do not:



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* Spot size genes - 2 genes/2 and 4 alleles

1 - Example of a horse with mixed normal and small spots


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* Spot density genes - 1 gene/100 alleles

1 - This horse is one example of a mix in density from both parents:


Where one parent has more dense spots:

And the other less:


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* Snowflake density genes - 2 genes/3 to 100 alleles

-

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* Varnish roan genes - 20 genes/2 to 100 alleles

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Appaloosa bronzing gene - 1 gene/100 alleles

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[BlackOak2]

Beautifully written.
Now for my notes. I won't be repeating what has already been posted in the first post, just things that are nominally 'not yet confirmed' to see if there are others that can confirm them (i.e. have unrelated bloodlines and have shown similar or the same result).

Plus, this is the old post for the appaloosa patterning, when they first came out: http://www.horseworldonline.net/forum/v ... f=8&t=4191

First and foremost. I found that in order to get the white really spreading well, I had to cross back into both shetlands and caspians a couple times to set the genes.

There is also an indication that snowflake horses can produce a blanketed offspring.

Kayaine posted this in another post recently (it was such a good explanation, I had to re-quote it here):

So when the app pattern first came out, I bred them. A lot.

The one thing I can tell you about them is they will always surprise you. Sometimes, you'll get a seemingly spotless horse that varnishes. Sometimes you'll go from spots to blankets.

The best way I can think to explain what happened is this:

Any horse that varnishes carries some form of the "on" switch or LP. Horses have a chance of carrying PATN as well even if they don't have the LP. I've found that thinking of PATN like a glass that you can add water to helps me. I think of your stud as carrying very little water in his glass. Sometimes, he'll pass some portion of water on to his foals glass, and like everything else, how much he passes will vary. The same thing with the mare. So in the end, your foal may have more water in his glass (or snowflakes in this case) then either of his parents, more than 1 but less than the other, or less than both, or even, none at all. I can't tell you an absolute for why snowflakes can mysteriously turn into blankets though.

It always seemed to happen to me with very spotted horses. I usually thought of it as having enough water in the glass that (enough of the PATN gene) it overflowed and splattered a blanket everywhere. So it happens sometimes, but not others. And because it's difficult to tell in any given pair that produces snowflakes only how much PATN they can truly pass on before a blanket happens, it's hard to guess what you'll get. Usually, you should just get more snowflakes, but sometimes, you'll splash over and get a blanket.

Hope this helps!

I am not working on the snowflakes, but this is what I posted about it (it is in the same post as the quote from Kayaine)

'Snowflake is controlled by two genes and (mostly by visual assumption) seems to be an incomplete dominant (which generally means that as long as the horse has at least one Lp gene to turn it on, if the horse carries a snowflake gene, it will always develop some sort of snowflakes. But... since it's controlled by two genes... then what happens if a foal is born with both genes? If we are to assume that some of the snowflake horses we see from the AC, carry just one of these genes, then as long as it passes this single gene on (a 25% chance, by the way), then as long as the foal also inherits the Lp gene (from the sire, another at least 25% and no more than 50% chance if the mare shows no patterns at all), you will get a snowflake foal, but that only proves that the sire is passing on those genes, not that the mare is.
But with only a 25% (assuming your sire that shows color, carries only one of the Lp and one of the snowflake) chance of passing those colors, offering only two foals with an unknown carrier mare isn't really fair to the mare. What you would want, is to guarantee that one parent (either the mare or the sire) has two copies of both, that guarantees that the foal will offer some sort of color. But here's the problem. What happens when you have two Lp genes? And what happens when you have two snowflake genes?

Like Kayaine said, I also have the theory that if you produce a foal carrying both snowflake genes, it will produce a spotted blanket with the snowflakes. But... that could also be an expression of a specific allele and not the expression of the gene itself (an allele is a part of the gene).
So... perhaps that mare carries the spotted blanket allele expression on one of her genes that cannot show itself unless it has both snowflake genes; this would make the specific allele recessive and could only reveal itself in descendants if the partner also showed the blanket and pattern gene.'

Plus I also offered a copy of all of my notes thus far:
'Arabian offers a closer density spotting and may offer a different patterning, could fill in certain areas that other breeds can't. Possibly only carries PATN2.
Belgian offers medium spots and perhaps also offers a smaller white spread. It could also be the carrier of the full leopard PATN1, but extremely rare, if it does. An update to this is that the breed may offer coverage for the under-stomach area and the front of the rear legs.
Caspian is the main unlocking breed for the spreading of white patterning. Offers a lot of spread but doesn't seem to offer spread in blanket areas that shetland and tarpan covers.
Forest horses offer the largest spots available and probably offers little to no white spreading.
NAB offers snowflake spreading and maybe offers less density to the spots. (I haven't tested this breed yet)
Prezewalski offers the minimum sized spots available and may also offer less density to spots.
Shetland carries the master switch Lp and seems to offer spot ability (but not white spread) over most of the basic body. Also offers white spread over hips and back legs. Also is the carrier of the highest (quickest appearing), or called extreme varnish.
Tarpan carries the master switch Lp with color over hips and back, but will only spread to the point of the hip and no further. Also seems to be a carrier of the extreme varnish.
Turkmene seems to offer the highest spreading snowflake pattern. (This is another I haven't tested yet)

The following are notes that I made for myself, so please excuse the verbiage.


Appaloosa notes.
PATN is the pattern gene and has 26 genes with 2 to 4 alleles each. I wonder if it's PATN1 through PATN26 or if the alleles reference parts of the body. As stated, PATN1 causes the most white to appear and is hidden in two breeds. But that could reference a near-leopard pattern and a full-leopard pattern. The gene also works as a dominant. I wonder if one of these, PATN is snowflake incomplete dominant, but when inherits a second of the same PATN, it offers a blanket instead, but… some still show snowflakes? on web, PATN2 is responsible for but blankets that can extend to the shoulder, stomach but not legs.on the web, doubled PATN2 offers the same blanket, but with few to no spots, it also says that PATN2 is for 'any other pattern that is not PATN1' Tarpan does not carry the PATN1 gene.on the web, doubled PATN2 offers the same blanket, but with few to no spots, it also says that PATN2 is for 'any other pattern that is not PATN1'

Snowflake has 2 genes with 3 to 100 alleles. Is snowflake completely separate from PATN? As stated 'snowflake density: all breeds are capable of developing snowflake spots…'? as stated: 'one breed carries high density and one breed carries extreme density' which could mean that one of the genes is an incomplete dominant. what do I know? I know that two snowflake parents can produce a blanket but also has snowflakes, which means what? They both have Lp, they both have snowflake, but neither carries the PATN1 gene. So, the snowflake gene can be an incomplete dominant, meaning two creates blankets, but then any snowflake carrier will produce blankets 50% when crossed with other snowflake carriers. So it is not an incomplete dominant for blankets. which means what? Since this has two genes, that means one is strictly snowflake and the other is snowflake and blanket. So now there is a new question. Can the snowflake blanket spread if only bred to other snowflake blankets where the snowflake spreads?

Spot size has 2 genes, one with 4 alleles and the other with 2 alleles. There are 4 different sizes of spots, herein named tiny, normal, medium and large. two breeds carry medium and large size (belgian = medium, forest = large).
I think this is an incomplete dominant or possibly co-dominant. I also think that all horse that carry PATN genes, must also carry both spot genes, in some form.

Spot Density is 1 gene with 100 alleles. I lean toward the assumption that the alleles are split between areas of effect and denseness of spots, because a horse can have different densities on different areas of the body, and they seem to be passable to offspring.'

That is the extent of what I can find right now. I did delete some items that have already been proven, or stated in the topic post. I will post some questionable pictures (odd things that are happening) and my thoughts of causes as this topic develops. Right now there are only three. Layering where spots look like they get chopped off. Unusually undersized spots in certain areas. And freckles down the backside of the legs. I'll post them shortly.

...

I'm quoting because we had discussions in the past about snowflakes and patterns and perhaps you would find this posting useful to you or also you can add your finding to it as well.

...

You've probably already seen this and perhaps have also bookmarked it.

...

I didn't realize it. We had discussions earlier about the appaloosa patterns, then Raikit said you had taken over the black pattern project. So anyway, Raikit said you might be interested in also offering your insights into this as well.

[BlackOak2]

All of these are possibly/probably caused by the layers of color versus white. This may mark these lines as the edge of an area.

Freckles (seen on the back of the front leg)


Chopped Spots (along the thigh)


Unusually Undersized Spots (seen here just behind the elbow)

[Stick]

!

Thank you so much for pinging me! I will definitely be picking through this info and comparing to my notes.

[Silverine]

Edit 1: I've decided to try and deduce which breeds carry which lp/PATN genes by crossing black-based AC stallions with my snowcap mares. If anyone has a black-based stallion of an AC breed (doesn't have to be first-gen AC) that has no other breeds in his pedigree and would let me use him please let me know.

There is also an indication that snowflake horses can produce a blanketed offspring.

...

I didn't realize it. We had discussions earlier about the appaloosa patterns, then Raikit said you had taken over the black pattern project. So anyway, Raikit said you might be interested in also offering your insights into this as well.

First, to concur with your statement, in my experience snowflake horses definitely can produce blanketed offspring. Following on from your quotes from Kayaine, the snowflake pattern is like having only a few drops of water in your glass. Once you get enough drops you start getting a little pool of water in the glass - this generally shows up as a small blanket over the hip area. I haven't seen that "beginner" blanket pop up anywhere else but it's possible that it will.

Unfortunately I can't find any of my blanket-from-two-snowflakes horses right now (they were some of my first ones and are long gone), but this mare was out of a snowflake mare by a stallion with a small blanket and shows a nice combination of the two:



The dam:


The sire:



One thing that I don't think anyone has mentioned so far is how spots are not restricted to only the area covered by the white pattern. For example, on the stallion above you can clearly see spots "floating" in the varnish area outside of his blanket. And for another, on the foal picture for this mare you can only see the spots in her white areas but as she ages the spots also become more evident in her varnish areas. I find this to be a nice example of how white area and amount/location of spots are controlled at least semi-independently.



Also, I believe that in order to have those floating spots you are still required to have the big areas of white rather than just snowflakes. Or at least I haven't had any of those spots pop up in the varnish on my horses that only had snowflakes. And I thought for a moment that I'd never seen the floating spots on a snowcap either, but a quick check through my herd showed that they can pop up on the snowcap pattern:



And as a final note I've also looked into bronzing, but I don't have my notes on me at the moment. I will edit this post when I find them.

[Totina]

I have updated the first post to include some of the theories brought up by you. When reading again about the snowflake and blanket connection I just remembered a very interesting result I got when I was going for no pattern genes at all and just the varnish roan.
Two of my horses that are just varnish roan and have no snowflakes actually produced a foal with a small blanket pattern. I will try to recreate this effect and perhaps we could come to some kind of conclusion about it.

[Silverine]

Bronzing

Bronzing is the phenomenon caused by appaloosa spotting that causes a black coat to appear red in color. Bronzing comes in differing intensities depending upon the other dilutions acting on the horse's coat - bronzing on an undiluted black coat will make the coat appear very dark chestnut. The bronzing effect is not apparent from birth and only begins to affect the horse's coat after it turns one year old. A horse that bronzes should be at its most red color by 4 years old and will then slowly darken with age back to its original black-based color.

In my experience bronzing is an incomplete dominant gene much like cream. One copy acts like the on-off switch to start the bronzing. Adding more copies of the bronzing gene makes the expression more extreme. However, I have found that the underlying dilutions on the horse's coat (cream, silver, etc) have more effect on the appearance of the bronzing (shade, etc) than does the number of bronzing genes.

For my personal notes I refer to bronzing in three ways - traditional, silver, and metal.
Traditional bronzing causes a black horse to appear like a dark liver chestnut. Silver bronzing causes a silver-diluted coat to appear bright red. Metal bronzing is a milder form of bronzing that causes a smoky black horse to appear almost like a silver-dapple. Smoky black silvers show a combination of silver and metal bronzing that is milder than silver bronzing but more intense than metal bronzing. Examples are below (links take you to the horses in question).


Example 1: Traditional Bronzing on a Black Horse

1 Year	2 Years
3 Years	4 Years
22 Years

Example 2: Traditional Bronzing on a Black Horse - More Extreme Expression

1 Years	2 Years
3 Years	4 Years
8 Years	10 years

Example 3: Silver Bronzing on a Silver Black Horse

1 Year	2 Years
3 Years	4 Years

Example 4: Silver Bronzing on a Silver Black Horse - More Extreme Expression

1 Years	4 Years
16 Years

Example 5: Metal Bronzing on a Smoky Black Horse

1.25 Years	4 Years
8 Years	16 Years

Example 6: Silver and Metal Bronzing on a Smoky Black Silver Horse

0.5 Years (Still slightly off-color from foal coat.)	4 Years
11 Years

[BlackOak2]

Bronzing has always thrown me for a loop. That is an excellent description and really clears up exactly how bronzing is handled on this game for me.

As for the pattern genes. I had an undefined theory that pattern genes could be recessive in some form. Having two varnish (with probable no snowflakes), produce a blanketed offspring, could mean that some genes, or all genes for pattern are recessive or perhaps co-dominant form of recessive (if there is such a thing), meaning that in order for them to show up, you need both expressions on an allele but if you have multiple alleles able to express, they all can. I wonder if that would be considered a co-recessive type of a gene? But I don't think there is such a thing, at least not in real life.

I do know (in my notes at least), that certain breeds seem to spread white area, while others seem to spread the spots.
My notes probably weren't very forthcoming however, since I wrote them for me.
The ones I have marked as potential white spreaders are Belgian, almost definitely Caspian, and possibly Forest Horse to a small degree.
The ones I have marked as potential spot spreaders are Shetland to a potentially large degree and Tarpan to a small degree, possibly only over the hips and back.
I haven't been able to discern anything beyond that though.
I was briefly wondering if I could breed a high white area coverage with low spot area coverage, essentially a mostly white, few-spot leopard without being homozygous for Lp. I did not start that project.

[Totina]

Really good presentation about the bronzing effect at different ages and variations of it!

I am currently using horses from before the leopard patterns were implemented in the game to cross with my near leopard horses. This way I know that the foals will only carry one copy of whatever pattern genes they inherit and I am strongly leaning towards the genes being somewhat co-dominant in most areas.

I've only got fillies so far but I intend to get at least one colt to see if I can get more white spread again when breeding them together. This would probably confirm the co-dominant theory about the pattern genes for different areas.

Click on the images and check out the parents. The sires all come from before the leopard comlpex were impemented in the game, which means they only have the "default" genes for no pattern, no snowflakes etc.