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Figure 1 Figure 2 YELLOW-SIDED MUTATION The Yellow-Sided mutation is not fully understood but is thought to actually be the Opaline Mutation. To date this mutation has exhibited all the signs to meet the criteria of the Opaline mutation. First, the Opaline mutation is sex-linked in inheritance. Second, it must alter pigment distribution but not actually create any new pigments that the species does not already have. Thirdly the underside wing strip becomes visible from the top of the wing. Even though Yellow-sided Black Cap Conures and Yellow-sided Greencheek Conures don’t have this feature it is still believed that they are part of this mutation. Finally, in species with gray down pigment, this is lost and the down becomes white. However the yellow pigment is not lost from the down. With these identifying features the Opaline gene reduces the spread of the gray family pigments in the bird while enhancing the spread of the yellow family pigments. The modified yellow family pigments such as red, orange or pink are emphasized in species where they already naturally occur. There is no alteration to structural color production just an enhancement. This enhancement explains why the yellows, reds and pink have become so vibrant on Yellow-sided Conures. That also explains why there is such a variation in the coloring of Yellow-sided Conures. Here are some examples of some Yellow-sided Conures that show differing coloration’s. |
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Figure 3 Figure 4 |
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Figure 5 Figure 6 |
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Figure 7 |
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In figure 3 is a baby Yellow-sided Conure. You will notice that the gray down is replaced by a much lighter down, almost white. Figure 4 is a picture of two females. Compare them in coloration to any of figures 5 thru 7. There is a lot of difference. Figures 5 and 6 are brother and sister; where as the bird on the left in figure 7 is from a different clutch. In figure 7 the bird on the right is the same as the one in figure 5. Now that we have covered some of the basics lets start to get into the genetics part of this. I will use a chromosome pairing chart to show the outcome of each pairing. Since both the Cinnamon mutation and Yellow-sided mutation are sex-linked I will show examples of either but not always both. If you remember from our discussions above a female has an X and a Y chromosome. Therefore a hen will be shown as YX. The male has two X chromosomes and will be shown as XX. Also remember that the X chromosome is the only gene large enough to carry the sex-linked mutation. So what we will do for these examples is show the mutation in superscript on the X chromosome, for example: YXcin would be a Cinnamon female. Let try one more, XcinXcin any idea? That is a full visual Cinnamon male. Keep in mind two very important rule here for sex-linked mutations. First, the female must show here mutation color meaning if she is a Cinnamon she has to show the Cinnamon mutation. Second, the male is the only one that can be split to a sex-linked mutation. This also means he does not have to visually show the mutation. We will cover this in more detail so if it does not make total sense it will later. With that said let jump right into it. CHROMOSOME CHARTS To begin with lets take a look at a none mutation chromosome matching chart for a pair of ‘Normal’ Greencheek Conures. What this chart shows us is in this pairing theoretically you will get 50% male babies and 50% female babies. That is the crazy part about this genetic pairing stuff, it is all theoretical. Statically the numbers will work out for lets say a 1000 babies from this pair, but we all know we will never get that many. So the numbers may seem a little skewed for you because you may actually got 40% males and 60% females where as I might get just the opposite of 60% males and 40% females. It is just like flipping a silver dollar. How many times will it be heads? How many times tails?
In the example shown in table 1 I indicated the off spring as to their sex by color. Remember that XX are males, those are indicated by the blue highlight and the YX are the female offspring. The hens are highlighted in pink. I think that gives us a good starting point to begin talking about the sex-linked mutations. A similar chart would work just fine for either visual Cinnamon or visual Yellow-sided Greencheek Conures. Here are two more examples just to demonstrate what I mean. Keep in mind that only the X chromosome carries the mutation and for the bird to be visual all the X chromosomes must have the mutation attached to it.
Table 2 and table 3 are basically the same. The off spring is split 50% male and 50% females and they are all visual babies. Since both parents are of the same mutation the babies are visual just like the parents. Table 2 shows the results of pair of Cinnamon Greencheeks and table 3 shows the same results but with both parents being Yellow-sided Greencheeks. SPLITS In sex-linked mutations only the males can be split to the mutation. Remember that it takes both X chromosomes to be carrying the mutation for the bird to be visual. If only one of the X chromosomes has the mutation that is what is called a split. That is what is referred to as “he is split to Yellow-sided” or “he is split to Cinnamon”. Since the mutation is only on one X chromosome the male bird will look Normal, meaning showing no or very minimal visual indications that the mutation is present. Here are some charts to help explain how splits are breed and some of the problems with breeding them. I will only use Yellow-sided in these examples but Cinnamon is exactly the same. On the charts just substitute the Cinnamon mutation in place of the Yellow-sided mutation.
In table 4 we paired a visual male Yellow-sided with a Normal hen. What the results are, is that all the female offspring are visual Yellow-sided, but all the male offspring only have one X chromosome that is carrying the mutation. They are then split Yellow-sided. In table 5 for comparison we just reversed which parent was visual. Now the hen is the visual Yellow-sided and the cock is the Normal Greencheek. The offspring are quit different. What you see is that all the hen babies are Normal but the males are all still split to Yellow-sided. In both of these example the result are predictable and there are no unknowns. Let’s take two other examples and see what the results are.
In table 6 we have paired a split to Yellow-sided male with a Normal hen. The resulting offspring have now become a problem. The hens are ok. As you can see, you get 25% Normal hens and 25% Yellow-sided hens. The males are where the problems are. You get the same split that you had with the hens, meaning you will get 25% Normal males and 25% split to Yellow-sided males. That is were the problem resides. Remembering that splits look the same as Normal’s you will not be able to tell the difference between the split to Yellow-sided babies and the Normal babies. The only way to possible tell is to wait for them to mature and pair them up and see what type of babies you got. That would tell you if they were the Normals or the splits. In table 7 we used the same male but paired him with a visual Yellow-sided hen. The results are a little different and as you can tell we don’t have the same problem that we had with the pairing discussed in table 6. The offspring from this pairing are, 25% Normal hens, 25% Yellow-sided hens, 25% Yellow-sided cocks, and 25% split to Yellow-sided cocks. The major difference between table 6 and table 7 results are the fact that the male babies can be differentiated. DOUBLE SPLITS Since we know have a good understanding of how splits are made and some of the issues with them let talk about the next type of splits. Since each X chromosome can carry a mutation it is possible for a male bird to be split to more than one mutation. Traditionally the term “Double Split” has meant that the male bird is split to both Cinnamon and to Yellow-sided. Later on we will see that a male can actually be “Double Split” or even “Triple Split” and not always too just these two basic mutations. But for this discussion we will only talk about the male being split to Cinnamon and to Yellow-sided. Let’s look at some charts to see how this is possible.
Tables 8 and 9 are basically the same. They show both ways to make a Double Split Male. As you remember only the X chromosome can carry the mutation and since the male babies receive one X chromosome from each parent. All you do is pair a Cinnamon and a Yellow-side together. Does not matter which is the male and which is the female. That only matters when your counting on what mutation the female babies will be. As you can see in table 8, we paired a male Yellow-side with a Cinnamon hen. All the males are Double splits since they received one X chromosome from each parent and each one is carrying a mutation. As far as all the hen babies they will be all visual Yellow-sides. That is because they received their color mutation from their father who was a Yellow-side. Now compare those results to table 9. In this table we paired a male Cinnamon with a female Yellow-side. Once again, all the males are Double Splits. But unlike table 8, all the females here are visual Cinnamon’s. So depending on if you need Cinnamon hens or Yellow-sided hens is really the only factor in deciding on how you pair up these mutations for breeding of Double Split males.
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Figure 8 |
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