Odd Przewalski Coloring

[KayaineII]

So I'm working on breeding colored przewalski, and they threw this thing at me. I have no idea what to call him...

[Andraste]

My best guess would be a Cream Pearl.

Due to how dark he is and his pedigree, I would say definitely black-base, though I'm not sure if he's got a dominant Agouti gene. He would have inherited the cream gene from his dam and, if I'm right, his sire is heterozygous for the pearl gene (pearl doesn't show up unless it's homozygous OR the cream gene is present).

[KayaineII]

My best guess would be a Cream Pearl.

Due to how dark he is and his pedigree, I would say definitely black-base, though I'm not sure if he's got a dominant Agouti gene. He would have inherited the cream gene from his dam and, if I'm right, his sire is heterozygous for the pearl gene (pearl doesn't show up unless it's homozygous OR the cream gene is present).

Your best guess is better than mine!

I just can't seem to make any progress on working out the cream/pearl/ect genes.

Thanks!

[Andraste]

What do you find the difficult about it? I may be able to explain if you are interested.

[KayaineII]

What do you find the difficult about it? I may be able to explain if you are interested.

Sure! Tbh, everything. I've never really found a clear explanation on how they differ.

[Raikit II]

Here's an attempt at explaining cream and pearl.

Cream and pearl are carried at the same point. This means you can have double cream, double pearl, one pearl + one cream, only one cream, only one pearl, or none of either. What you can't have is two creams and pearl or two pearls and cream. If you have a horse that is double cream (perlino, cremello, smoky cream, etc) you know that it does not have pearl. If you have a horse that is double pearl, you know that it does not have cream.

What you can have (Cr represents cream, P is pearl, na is none): Cr/Cr, P/P, Cr/P, Cr/na, P/na, na/na.
What you can't have: Cr/Cr/P, P/P/Cr, etc.

Cream does not hide, except on black horses. If your horse isn't black and has a cream you will always be able to see it. A black horse with a single cream will still appear black (sometimes you can tell as a baby, but not always). Pearl in its heterozygous form does hide. A single pearl gene will not affect a horse's color. It starts to affect color when you get it in its homozygous form or combine it with a cream. Pearl and cream together can mimic double cream, though usually the dilution isn't quite as strong.

Some examples:
This horse is a cremello (two creams on chestnut) while this one is a palomino pearl (one cream and one pearl on chestnut).

This horse is a buckskin pearl (cream and pearl on bay). His coloring mimics perlino - he looks a lot like this horse, who is a perlino. In the case of the first horse we know he is not a perlino because his dam did not carry cream (she does carry a hidden pearl). In the case of the second horse we know he is not a buckskin pearl because neither parent carried pearl (both parents did have cream so pearl would have been evident). (You should take a look at the baby pictures on these two. The buckskin pearl is clearly more yellow than the perlino.)

Hope this helps!

""

Ping.

[Andraste]

Okay! I'm not sure how much background you have with genetics, so I'll start a little more rudimentary than might be necessary. Sorry if it's a bit of a book, but hopefully it's helpful:

First thing to know is that each color gene typically has two alleles and that there are dominant and recessive alleles. Dominant genes show up whenever they are present, while recessive genes need to be present together or acted on by a different gene to appear. For example, the black gene "E" is dominant over the red (chestnut) gene "e", so a black horse may either be "EE" or "Ee", whereas the a chestnut (red base) will always be ee.

Cream Gene

Cream is a dominant allele and shows over red colors such as chestnut, bay, and brown. A single cream gene turns red colors golden, but does not show up on black colors.

The cream gene changes colors like so:

Chestnut + Cream = Palomino
Bay + Cream = Buckskin
Black + Cream = Smoky Black
Chestnut + (Cream + Cream) = Cremello
Bay + (Cream + Cream) = Perlino
Black + (Cream + Cream) = Smoky Cream

Like I mentioned, a single cream gene does not affect black, so an adult Smoky Black horse looks identical to a plain black horse. However, on this game you can differentiate between the two by looking at the color the horse is as a foal. Black foals have a slightly reddish tint on here compared to smoky black which looks more silvery:

Black foal:
Smoky black foal:

Two cream genes further lightens the coat so the golden color turns almost white, pink appears around the eyes and muzzle, and black lights to a very bleached brown color.

Pearl Gene

Pearl is a recessive allele that occupies the same gene as the cream allele. The pearl gene does not show up unless there are two pearl alleles present or a cream and a pearl allele. When pearl is paired with cream, it looks the same as two cream genes. It's easiest to tell a cream pearl when one of the parents do not have a cream gene, like the colt in the original post. If the parentage is unknown and the horse looks like it has two cream genes, you breed the horse to a chestnut horse a few times and see if a chestnut-looking foal crops up - if so, you have a cream pearl. If all the foals are palomino, you've got two cream alleles.

Two pearl alleles on a chestnut horse looks similar to a red dun but without dun markings (e.g., dorsal stripe, zebra stripes on legs). This is most apparent when neither the sire or the dam are dun, but the foal looks dun. Two pearl on black looks like classic champagne and two pearl on bay looks like amber champagne, but no special other characteristics (e.g., freckling around the eyes/muzzle, light eyes) are present. Again, these type of pearls are easiest identified by the color of the parents.

[Andraste]

Here's an attempt at explaining cream and pearl.

""

Ping.

Ahhh, you beat me to it! Haha

[Raikit II]

Ahhh, you beat me to it! Haha

Sorry. XD I'm sure I missed something, so feel free to add anything I forgot.

[Andraste]

Ahhh, you beat me to it! Haha

Sorry. XD I'm sure I missed something, so feel free to add anything I forgot.

I mean, I posted the simplest explanation I can without clogging the post with tons of pictures. So hopefully one or both explanations are helpful.