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Old 04-26-2022, 01:55 PM  
sushi_78
Hamster Overlord
 
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Join Date: Jun 2019
Location: London
Posts: 763
Default Re: Raphael (Raffy's) Adventures

All hamsters are genetically one colour or another. In showing there are standards that are considered the ideal for each colour. So, for example, the preferred shade of orange or the preferred size of band on a banded hamster. A pedigree hamster is likely to conform to those standards whereas a pet shop origin hamster might not, but they will still have a genetic colour.

Genetics makes a bit more sense when you consider that a hamster's genome consists of various "loci" and at every locus they have either dominant or recessive genes. Each locus changes something specific about the hamster's fur colour. I don't have any specific examples for hamsters because I don't understand hamster genetics, but for example with gerbils there is the "underwhite" locus and the recessive underwhite gene strips out the red/brown pigment from the fur leaving a greyscale effect. So an agouti (brown with black ticking) turns into a grey agouti (grey with black ticking) and a nutmeg turns into a silver nutmeg. A hamster's actual colour will depend on all the different genes they have at each locus.

When you see notations in books such as aapp, each letter is a locus. So there's the A (agouti) locus and the P (red-eyed locus). Usually only the recessive genes are noted down since they're the ones that change a hamster's colour away from the wild type.

Raffy is really cute! I love cream hamsters (cream with a lower case c since he might actually be a genetic Cream!)
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