Black shoulder genetic !

[Dany12]

Can anyone answer this question?
Why with black shoulder males are 'black' (more melanin) and females are creamy white?
Logically the hen should be totaly black!
Is it a ' Sex-linked ' second degree?

Dark Throated Golden pheasant hens are dark .
Black ringneck pheasant hens are dark.
http://i102.photobucket.com/albums/m81/gamebirdsonly/028.jpg

 

[clinton9]

Please help Dany12 with study of why BS peahens are predominantly white birds.

I don't think BS peafowls were melanistic form of IB peafowl and I wondered...were BS peafowls the sex-linked opaline form ???

Melanistic peafowls had not existed yet.

If melanistic IB peafowls to exist, peacocks may look like BS peacocks, but much darker, with black head and neck and darker colours on trail, while peahens are very dark brown allover, with no buff colour.

 

[deerman]

first no its not sexlink........not a color either...it is a change in the pattern of the color markings, doesn't really change the color, just changes the pattern or places of the colors.

Young chicks like in the barred pattern look some what like hens even the males. until they get their color....same with the soild wing(bs) they start out looking like hens, until the males start getting their color. so really just the way the color is arranged makes a BS. in case of the male the barring covers the whole feather not just the tip of the shoulder feathers.

 

[Dany12]

Why not mutation blackshoulder and bronze pattern ?

 

[clinton9]

Both Black-shouldered and Buford Brozne are just colour mutations.

Melanistic Indian Blue peafowls do not exist yet, sorry.

Pavo cristatus cristatus

Pavo cristatus cristatus (Buford Bronze)

Pavo cristatus cristatus mut. nigripennis (Black-shouldered)

 

[deerman]

Blackshoulder .......is a pattern not a color.


Bronze is a color.


Pattern mutation just change the way the color appears on the bird. Patterns can come in all the color mutation.

 

[Kev]

It seems to me to be a form of delayed pigmentation. Being born with little or no color and gradually get more color as they grow.

Chicks both sexes start out with very little color- yellow down with or without cream tint to wing feathers at hatch.

Both sexes get color at roughly the same rate as they grow through their first weeks.

Females(all Indias, no matter if IB, cameo, opal etc) get their adult color/pattern very early, by the time they are 6 months old they have fully the adult hen coloration/pattern. My guess is the progress of coloring/pigmentation is "stopped" in females this early. So they are stuck in the "middle" of the black shoulder gradual pigmentation process for rest of their life.

Males in all colors continue to develop changes in color and patterning- more pigmentation through their young years until 3,4 yrs. So they(black shoulders) continue to get "fully colored" unlike the hens.

My guess, if the case were peacocks matured in their plumage much sooner, say, one year then perhaps they might have resembled the black shoulder hens a little more in how much white they have. As in they would have looked like a yearling black shoulder male(with longer tail feathers) for the rest of their life.

If it were the case peahens went through the same color progress/changes for a much longer period of time(say 2 or 3 yrs), then they possibly would have ended up solid black. Because in this case the pigmentation progress got to continue instead of being "arrested" so young.

 

[clinton9]

If melanistic Indian Blue peafowls were to exist, this drawing is what these melanistic IB peafowls will look like.

 

[FrankYLegend]

well we already have Midnight which pretty much looks like that.

when we mean "melanistic" we mean it is darker than the normal one, like BS Peacocks are "partially melanistic" and Peahens are "partially leucistic". It's more of a term to describe it than a scientific term.

I think Black Shoulder Peafowl are probably partial hybrid with Green Peafowl. That is why the wings are black and have a slight iridescence to them. The head and crest is also slightly different from typical IB Peafowl.

A form of Black Shouldered Peafowl was introduced to Japan hence why they are also known as "Japanned Peafowl". These have mostly Singhalensis genes with some Green Peafowl genes too.

It is incorrect to generalize a breed's origins from one species. People always say "all Peafowl mutations derive from Indian Peafowl except spauldings" and "all chickens derive from Red Junglefowl". The latter has been determined to be incorrect because Red Junglefowl don't have yellow skin gene so probably domestic chicken has Grey Junglefowl genes. Ducks are equally as strange as I have read some theories that the shelduck were part of domestication of some forms, not just Mallards.

 

[clinton9]

Frank,
I never heard about "Japanned peafowls"

Can you and Dani please send the photoes of Japanned peafowls as I had no idea what they look like in colours and pattens.