For srtiels: the odd markings saga

[tielfan]

This has already been discussed extensively, at http://talkcockatiels.com/showthread.php?t=6821 and elsewhere on the web. But since you seem to be very knowledgeable, I thought I'd get your take on Squeebis's odd markings.

Squeebis is a normal grey DNA'd male, with spots on his chest and stripes on his head:
http://i76.photobucket.com/albums/j24/ch_tielfan/IMG_4592.jpg
http://i76.photobucket.com/albums/j24/ch_tielfan/IMG_5032.jpg

The chest spots consist of a small dot near the tip of the feather, and the head markings are a vertical stripe running down the center of the feather from the tip toward the quill.

Dad is normal grey split whiteface, cinnamon and lutino (on separate X's). Mom is whiteface and has similar markings, but less extensive. Squeebis obviously inherited the markings from her. Mother and son both have a lot more spots under the wing than average.

I joined the National Cockatiel Society specifically to ask them about these marks. Some of the other members had birds with similar markings, and all the affected birds were either whiteface or split whiteface. The chest spots are more common than the head stripes. The markings usually fade as the bird matures, but my two are actually getting more markings. Squeebis is taking a very long time to get his male plumage - he's 14 months old and still has a lot of his baby feathers - so it's still possible that he might end up losing his spots and stripes.

After much discussion, the best guess at NCS was that there is an unrecognized "spot" gene, which works somewhat like pearling in the way it affects the melanin in the feather, but is dominant in its inheritance. When two genes are very close together on the chromosome they can become physically linked together so that they usually travel as a pair, sort of like being handcuffed together. The "spot" gene may be linked to the whiteface gene this way. However, Sue on this board has had several chicks with chest spots and no known whiteface genes.

What do you think?

Thanks!

[srtiels]

Hmmm...what your asking is something I have been trying to find out myself. I too have had odd birds like that. Somehow I beleive that when the pied gene is in there it can contribute to some unusal markings such as these birds. The hen in the first pix is also spliy tp WF, but in the other 2 pix there is no WF in the background.
http://i525.photobucket.com/albums/cc331/Mousebirds-and-more/Other%20birds/aa-unusual-grey-collage.jpg
http://i525.photobucket.com/albums/cc331/Mousebirds-and-more/Other%20birds/20080206_916.jpg
http://i525.photobucket.com/albums/cc331/Mousebirds-and-more/Other%20birds/20080206_922.jpg

[srtiels]

Timeline for Cockatiel Mutations

There are only 5 mutations that have first appeared in the USA

Pied…USA…1949

Lutino…USA, Miami FL…1958

Pearl…West Germany…1967

Cinnamon…Belgium…1967

Recessive Silver: New Zealand 1950, Today’s RS are of European origin from the 60’s

Fallow…USA, Florida…1971

Whiteface…Holland 1969, then to Germany late 70’s, then UK 1979, then USA imported 1984

Dominant Silver…UK…1979

Pastelface…late 1980’s

Sex-linked Yellow Cheek…Europe late 1980’s, then imported to US in 1992

Dominant Yellow Cheek…USA, Florida…early 1990’s

Emerald, Olive…USA, Texas…mid 1990’s

[Cannuck2007]

I find this topic very interesting. That is great information srtiels, thank you for sharing. I find the genetics of the pied birds very intriguing,maybe that's why they are my favorite mutation. I have a whiteface pied pearl male, who has retained his pearls, though not as heavy as most hens it is still quite prominant. I have also heard this in normal pied pearl males. I have yet to hear of it in other mutations such as lutino though. I am curious if these "spots and stripes" could be related to the pied or pearl gene as well. The picture of squeebis is identicle almost to Lexi, the hen that my Snuckums came from.

[Mythara]

Timeline for Cockatiel Mutations

There are only 5 mutations that have first appeared in the USA

Pied…USA…1949

Lutino…USA, Miami FL…1958

Pearl…West Germany…1967

Cinnamon…Belgium…1967

Recessive Silver: New Zealand 1950, Today’s RS are of European origin from the 60’s

Fallow…USA, Florida…1971

Whiteface…Holland 1969, then to Germany late 70’s, then UK 1979, then USA imported 1984

Dominant Silver…UK…1979

Pastelface…late 1980’s

Sex-linked Yellow Cheek…Europe late 1980’s, then imported to US in 1992

Dominant Yellow Cheek…USA, Florida…early 1990’s

Emerald, Olive…USA, Texas…mid 1990’s

There's also a Platinum mutation, which I believe is only in Australia just now. :)

[srtiels]

Canook2007... Yes...many molted out adult pearl males can retain a diluted form of pearling as shown in the illus below. With lutino pearl males, when they lose their pearling, they will sometimes get a a very dilute cinnamon or lavender wash to their backs where ther former pearling used to be. When you see a lutino male that you know for sure that there is no cinnamon in its background, and an odd wash you can be sure that was pearled.

As to the speckling you and others have seen it makes me wonder if it has shown up in any of the wild flocks of tiels in Australia? And if not, if it ever showed up between the timeline of when the pied and pearl were developed. Sadly there is not alot of information as to the mutations worked with that contributed to the developement of a new mutation.

Mythara...thanks for the mention of platinum. I did not list it as a mutation we are working with in the US.

As to WF contributing to the thrush markings and specklings, if you look at the timeline of mutations, these types of markings have been documented long before the Whiteface mutation was developed.

http://i525.photobucket.com/albums/cc331/Mousebirds-and-more/Other%20birds/20080206_812.jpg

[tielfan]

Neither of my parent birds has any visible sign of a pied split, nor do any of their chicks. But I don't know anything about the parents' ancestry so it's possible. But pied normally changes the color of an entire feather. Squeebis and Shodu have light markings on feathers that are otherwise dark.

The NCS discussion didn't really talk about pied, but we did talk about pearl because I had wondered if it was an aberrant type of pearling. The genetics people at NCS thought that it was not pearling, although apparently this spot gene (if it exists) affects the feather in a somewhat similar fashion. They felt certain that a pearl split never shows itself. However sweetrsue's chest-spotted birds were males split to pearl.

Squeebis was the only one of my dark (grey or cinnamon) chicks to have these markings, but I think one of the lutino girls might have had them too. I didn't notice it when she was a baby and she belongs to someone else now, but when I babysat for her a few months ago I noticed that she had spots on her chest. In her case the spots were a darker yellow than the rest of the feather.

Right now I have five babies at the pinfeather stage. It'll be interesting to see if any of them have the spots.

[srtiels]

Qite possibly it could be an aberrant type of pearling. In the 2 illus. of the N/ppd and his son...they expressed a smeared diluted type of patches of pearling on the back. Yet when bred they have proven that they ane 'only' split to pearl. The father is 10 years old now and still retains the tail of a female pearl.

The opinions of the genetic experts frustrate me, and how quick they are to entertain the thought of the possibility of something going on with certain tiels. And also how broadly they can use the term 'sport' And Soooo many birds are faulted for expressing their splits...such as split to pearl, the wash of a lutino pearl male, the iregular shaped ear patch, and white edging resulting to a normal/WF facial mask. An example of the changes to the cheek patch can be seen with 'Squeebis' when split to WF. Below is an old article from a magazine about someone working with some changes they had occur with their tiels. When I started with tiels in 1991 I contacted them, but by that time they were told by the 'Cockatiel Societies' that this was not a new mutation, yet had no suggestions on what was going on with the birds. The breeders got discouraged and gave the birds away and sold many to pet shops. There is no telling where these original birds went and/or what would have happened if these people were encouraged to work with the birds. Every time I look at the pix it always reminds me of the spangling you will sometimes see with Emeralds and dominant Silver.
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http://i525.photobucket.com/albums/cc331/Mousebirds-and-more/Other%20birds/20080206_523.jpg
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http://i525.photobucket.com/albums/cc331/Mousebirds-and-more/Other%20birds/20080206_524.jpg
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http://i525.photobucket.com/albums/cc331/Mousebirds-and-more/Other%20birds/20080206_525.jpg

[atvchick95]

The picture from the article looks a lot like a Spangled it maybe because its a black and white pic though

but it does look a lot like this bird
http://members.optusnet.com.au/~petcockatiels/petcockatiel%20images/Bo_Jangles_spangle.jpg

From:http://members.optusnet.com.au/~geoffwatts1/Silver_Spangle_Cockatiels.html

the article makes it confusing, I thought it would be just like a Spangled Budgie - the markings are just reversed

[srtiels]

Yes...it does have similar spangling. Is your tiel Dominant Silver or Emerald/Olive. Both mutations look very similar when they are normals (orange cheek patch)

[srtiels]

Hmmm...in looking again the spangling is the reverse of what it normally is with Dominant Silvers.

Is this a bird you have?...interesting. If so, what is it's background?

[atvchick95]

no i got the pic from the website i posted

i wish I did i think its very pretty

the only spangles I have are Budgies :)

but I do have a Dominant Silver, had an Emerald Female but she died. but I have their son

[tielfan]

Qite possibly it could be an aberrant type of pearling.

If it is, it works very differently than ordinary pearling. The marks follow a different pattern and appear on different parts of the body, and the gene appears to be dominant and non-sex-linked. The marks tend to fade with age like regular pearling, but the fading or not fading apparently isn't related to the sex of the bird.

I don't know a lot about genetics. But assuming that there actually is a spot gene, it seems to me that it may have become decoupled from the whiteface gene (if they were ever linked in the first place). Overall I've still heard more reports of the spots occurring in birds with at least one whiteface gene. But there are enough reports of it showing up in birds with no known whiteface genes for me to think that it might be traveling around independently now.

[srtiels]

But assuming that there actually is a spot gene, it seems to me that it may have become decoupled from the whiteface gene (if they were ever linked in the first place).
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Ah...but if you look at the timeline of Mutations this has been occurring years because the Whiteface gene evolved....thus WF is only a coincidence

[tielfan]

Ah...but if you look at the timeline of Mutations this has been occurring years because the Whiteface gene evolved....thus WF is only a coincidence

I don't know how long these particular markings have been around. They're not a recognized mutation so they're not in the timeline!

It appears that the majority of whiteface genes floating around in the cockatiel population are NOT accompanied by the alleged spot gene. So if there actually is a physical link between the two, it seems to me that the spot gene must have developed later and just happened to be close enough to get stuck to a WF gene that was already there. From there it would have started spreading through the WF population.

Mutations can happen more than once of course. So the spot gene could also have arisen in another bird that didn't have a WF gene for it to get stuck to, and is now spreading through the general population without being attached to anything in particular.

Changing the subject somewhat, the idea of the thrush-chested gene was floated as a possible explanation during the NCS discussion. If you happen to have George A. Smith's Encyclopedia of Cockatiels, it's on page 228 (of the 1978 edition anyway). The author was a little too economical with words so his meaning is not exactly clear. But I get the impression that he was talking about entire feathers on the chest being lightened, which is not the situation that we're discussing here.

[srtiels]

If you happen to have George A. Smith's Encyclopedia of Cockatiels, it's on page 228 (of the 1978 edition anyway).
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I don't think it can be related to the WF gene.

Whiteface…Holland 1969, then to Germany late 70’s, then UK 1979, then USA imported 1984


Later on today I will have to upload a bunch of pix of abnormalities with feathers I have had. There is a Genetic list I was once on and it is a worldwide group and no on could come up with answers. I've even had birds that have had normal, AND Cinnamon feathers...these were pieds. I have an older 'normal' pearl (molted) male that is now molting IN a cinnamon pearl feather. His grandfather also did this. I have had WF Cinn pied after the first molt molt IN pearls. I have had 'split to pearl' males that were partically pearled when young. In my experience all these birds were from generations of pieds or split to pied. Just a few had WF in the background.