“Recessive Black” : A Plumage Color Mutant in Japanese Quail

Abstract

A black plumage color mutant (BPC) was described in this paper. The BPC quail was a dark colored bird. The chick down feathers on the back and head were black ending with a brown tip. The face and throat were cream-yellow and the ventral surface was a mixture of gray and cream-yellow. The beak and shanks were darkly pigmented but some toes were yellow while others had spotted areas of pigmentation. When the birds reached to maturity, both males and females had pigmentation, and the feather appearance of dorsal and ventral surface were basically similar. The dorsal feather pattern was similar to that of wild-type except that the wheat-straw shafting was absent. Some of the BPC quails showed small areas of white feather at the junction of the upper and lower beaks and in the throat under the lower beak. To clarify the mode of inheritance of the BPC characters, mating experiments were performed. The segregation data for F1, F2 and backcross generations were analyzed. Genetic analysis showed that the BPC was controlled by an autosomal recessive gene. Therefore, a gene symbol “rb” was proposed.

Keywords

• black plumage
• genetic analysis
• recessive black