rarest gerbil coat color

[angel]

I’ve been wondering for a while what the ‘rarest’ coat colour is in gerbils, or if there even is one. For some reason I always thought that burmese & siamese were among the rarest until I saw how common they are in the UK. Where I am in Canada, it seems that it’s rare to find colourpoints or gerbils with the uw (or g) gene whereas in other areas of the world they are pretty common. Does anyone know what the rarest colour(s) are in each part of the world?

[betty]

You have hit the nail on the head angel - the rarest colour depends on where you are and who you know.

If you don't have certain genes in your country - or other genes are more prized - then it skews your 'rare' just like that.


Another 'take' on rare would be for gene combinations (as opposed to a gene being just one mutation). So for a cp silver nutmeg for example, you would need to have enough individual versions of 4 different recessive genes all coming together in one single gerbil, whereas getting a dilute rex silver nutmeg needs a further 2 more recessive gene pairs to appear. And seeing as you only get an average of 4-6 pups a litter, and 2 litters per pairing - the chances of getting a single pup (from common-coloured parents) with all those genes in one body are super rare (whereas just the cp gene or the non-agouti gene are super common on their own).

I suppose it is like getting the winning lotto ticket - getting a single number to match yours is quite easy, but getting all 6 numbers to match on one ticket is near on impossible...

[TJ's Rodent Ranch]

Yes, that's a question I have asked myself, then discovered what Betty said, and then regurgitated that information to others who have asked me.

There was a time when a lucky trip to the pet store achieved several Burmese gerbils. After that, I couldn't get anything but Burmese. (Quite frustrating, really).
I can say that a color that seems to be uncommon in most places, is lilac, and variations thereof. I myself have never seen one, but they look kind of like a creamy white color (for a totally lamen description).

That's just the first that comes to mind, but whether a color is 'rare' or not, depends on where you're located.

[angel]

Jan 12, 2024 21:03:48 GMT -8 TJ's Rodent Ranch said:

Yes, that's a question I have asked myself, then discovered what Betty said, and then regurgitated that information to others who have asked me.

There was a time when a lucky trip to the pet store achieved several Burmese gerbils. After that, I couldn't get anything but Burmese. (Quite frustrating, really).
I can say that a color that seems to be uncommon in most places, is lilac, and variations thereof. I myself have never seen one, but they look kind of like a creamy white color (for a totally lamen description).

That's just the first that comes to mind, but whether a color is 'rare' or not, depends on where you're located.

One of my gerbils from one of my earlier pairs was a lilac and she was a medium grey color. I though creamy white was called ivory or white-bellied cream?

[TJ's Rodent Ranch]

Oh gosh, yes there are so many gerbils that can be put under creamy white so I probably should have been more specific. It's one of them, of various different shades and patterns. I don't know how I would professionally describe that in genomes, though.

[betty]

There are two creamy-white ones that could be deemed extremely rare.

One is the 5 recessive 'c-seperator'- which is a gerbil who was bred to have ALL (5 at the time) recessive genes, so their genetic code was: aa cc ee pp uwduwd. This meant that they (genetically) had the ability to 'pull out' any recessive genes hidden in any other gerbils they were paired to. Like a gene x-ray. These were very hard to create in the first place, but well worth the effort if you were trying to breed out certain recessive genes (like the one that creates Burmese) or trying to improve color on show gerbils (because some recessive genes fade color).

The other rare cream was the 'new' underwhite allele. We used to only have the underwhite dilute (uw^d) but then the plain old underwhite gene (uw) was discovered - and it was super rare anyway- and internationally rare as it was only in Asia at the time. Someone finally imported some to Canada I think, and I have no idea how far they have travelled since - but still rare I assume?