#anyway this has been genetics with cécil | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

tetedurfarm · 5 months ago

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dazzle camouflage is real (think zebra stripes or shiny silver fish) but a harlequin's stripes is not that. it is just a marking that humans have selectively bred for because it's pretty.

Dazzle camouflage is a family of rabbit camouflage that was used extensively by Harlequin rabbits, and to a lesser extent, other rabbit breeds throughout history. It consisted of complex patterns of geometric shapes in contrasting colors interrupting and intersecting each other.

Unlike other forms of camouflage, the intention of dazzle is not to conceal, but to make it difficult to estimate a rabbit's range, speed, and heading.

#for the technical lovers: it's on the e locus (ej) and the gene changes the distribution of the two types of melanin that rabbits have #into patches or bars/stripes rather than agouti bands on every hair :)#the rabbit in that photo specifically is called a magpie harlequin - meaning it's a base colour + white #the other variety is base colour + orange and is called japanese #unfortunately it's called japanese because of orientalism. but that's still the term we use in the rabbit world #the thing that changes japanese to magpie is the chinchilla gene (cchd) that strips out all orange pigment in the fur but leaves the black #anyway this has been genetics with cécil

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