Eye and Pelt Color

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Blightwolf
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Eye and Pelt Color

Post by Blightwolf » Tue Mar 31, 2009 6:03 am

Can wolves suffer from a condition known as heterochromia (one eye is different coloured from the other)? Does wolves inherit a certain pelt colour when they are born from their parents or is it completeley random? What I mean is that can the wolf cubs from the same parents be different in colours? Is it possible, that if the male wolf is black and the female is white, that they will have a black&white coloured pups?
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Re: Eye and Pelt Color

Post by Lucrisha01 » Tue Mar 31, 2009 3:27 pm

Embry wrote:Can wolves suffer from a condition known as heterochromia (one eye is different coloured from the other)? Does wolves inherit a certain pelt colour when they are born from their parents or is it completeley random? What I mean is that can the wolf cubs from the same parents be different in colours? Is it possible, that if the male wolf is black and the female is white, that they will have a black&white coloured pups?
For the first one. I am not exactly sure, but my dog has it, so im pretty sure, wolves could too. Since dogs are related to wolves.

Its inherited. But its not lol. A wolf could have two white parents, but a pup could turn out black. This is because, some where in the family line, there was a black wolf. It could be the grandparents, great grandparent. If it does not make since sorry its hard to explain.

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Re: Eye and Pelt Color

Post by pawnee » Tue Mar 31, 2009 7:04 pm

If a wolf has two diffrent eye colours its almost always means its a hybrid of some sort. I have a calendar called Wolves 2009, an agenda shaped one with a wolf and a blue background on the cover published by Brown Trout publishers. It has a wolf with one yellow eye and one very very light brown eye. I`ll try and scan it but it looks 100% wolf to me. Of course, captive conditions somtimes allow genetic mutations to continue when in the wild, the animal would be unable to survive and pass on its genes.
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Re: Eye and Pelt Color

Post by Songdog » Tue Mar 31, 2009 8:54 pm

That or photoshop.

"Heterochromia is a result of the relative excess or lack of melanin (a pigment). It may be inherited, due to genetic mosaicism, or due to disease or injury"

Technically, it's possible. But it wouldn't be one blue eye and one yellow eye. They would have two yellow eyes, but of different pigment. This occurs in humans as well.

As said, blue eyes are a dog trait, not a wolf trait. Only pups have blue eyes, with rare cases of it occurring up until a year of age.

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Re: Eye and Pelt Color

Post by April » Tue Mar 31, 2009 10:14 pm

Embry wrote:Can wolves suffer from a condition known as heterochromia (one eye is different coloured from the other)? Does wolves inherit a certain pelt colour when they are born from their parents or is it completeley random? What I mean is that can the wolf cubs from the same parents be different in colours? Is it possible, that if the male wolf is black and the female is white, that they will have a black&white coloured pups?

If wolves do have two different coloured eyes, it's probably not natural.

As for the offspring looking like their parents. Usually they do, but this doesn't always happen. It is known that if two white wolves have pups, the pups can be black or gray or brown, etc. This is probably because their ancestors wern't all white.
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Re: Eye and Pelt Color

Post by Blightwolf » Tue Mar 31, 2009 11:00 pm

Thank you for all the great answers, everyone.

I was wondering the same thing with the eye color (heterochromia) because it can be genetic... but I would still reckon myself that a pure-blooded wolf would not suffer from it if not because of trick of nature. Wolfdogs are known to have it and dog breeds similar to Siberian Husky, Alaskan Malamute, etc.
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Re: Eye and Pelt Color

Post by Songdog » Wed Apr 01, 2009 4:03 am

Songdog wrote: "Heterochromia is a result of the relative excess or lack of melanin (a pigment). It may be inherited, due to genetic mosaicism, or due to disease or injury"

Technically, it's possible. But it wouldn't be one blue eye and one yellow eye. They would have two yellow eyes, but of different pigment.
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I believe it is possible, although rare. And as said, it would still have yellow eyes, just in different tones or shades. Even if not from genetics.

For example, a wolf that has a cataract in one eye and goes blind will have two different colored eyes, and by definition, that is heterochromia.

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Re: Eye and Pelt Color

Post by Blightwolf » Wed Apr 01, 2009 7:18 am

So it's possible, either technically (a wolf with a cataract in one eye and then it goes blind like Songdog wrote) or genetically (the wolf has been born with the condition). But I still believe it's more common with dogs/wolfdog hybrids, rather than with actual wolves.

I'm trying to hunt down a picture of a wolf with the condition...
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Re: Eye and Pelt Color

Post by Griffinsong » Mon Apr 06, 2009 9:59 pm

Embry wrote:Can wolves suffer from a condition known as heterochromia (one eye is different coloured from the other)? Does wolves inherit a certain pelt colour when they are born from their parents or is it completeley random? What I mean is that can the wolf cubs from the same parents be different in colours? Is it possible, that if the male wolf is black and the female is white, that they will have a black&white coloured pups?
As to the second question, it's all in genetics. Try Googling 'wolf pup fur color genetic probabilities' and see what comes up. ^_-

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