Can Pied Lilacs lighten with age?

[KatnissUna]

I thought my boy, Lark, was a pied lilac. I actually had asked a few years ago but y’all on the forum thought he was, and everyone said pied lilac. He’s a bit older now, about 2 years, and he is pretty light now. You can see a semi recent picture of him in my profile picture, he’s the white-ish one, I guess describes him best.
     He was truly a lot darker as a pup, but is he still a pied lilac, or what happened? Very curious now to see if they lighten with age or if this is a fluke :/ 
     Thanks!

[betty]

2 versions of this could be at play.

1: In gerbil shows (at least in the UK) they show on colour - not genetics. So you can either show a dark aaC*pp gerbil (show) Lilac or you can show a really light aaC*pp gerbil and enter it in the (show) Dove category. Therefore someone may have called your Lark as Lilac when he was genetically a Sapphire (something that is hard to 'show' consistantly as it is neither dark or light).

2: As the colourpoint genes are temperature (and to some extent personally) dependent - it is possible that the environment/himself is now at a different setting and so he moulted out a lighter shade. Because a dark-looking Sapphire can look like a light-looking Lilac, and a light-looking Sapphire can look as pale as a dark-looking Dove - these colourings can be quite variable - especially if you have already got spotting in the mix!

Not sure either way - but one of these could be at play. I am not sure if carrying another dilute gene (d or e^f) could cause lightening with age though as I don't know enough about the long-term actions of these 2 genes. Hopefully someone else can chip in.