# Mosaics, Mosaics everywhere...



## MaryOfExeter (Sep 30, 2007)

...In my shoes and in my hair! 

Look at all these neat-o birds I found:

http://www.angelfire.com/tn/frankgerman/mosaicF.html
http://www.angelfire.com/tn/frankgerman/mosaic4.html
http://www.angelfire.com/tn/frankgerman/mosaic3.html
http://www.angelfire.com/tn/frankgerman/mosaicRobert.html
http://www.angelfire.com/tn/frankgerman/mosaic5.html
http://www.angelfire.com/tn/frankgerman/Runt.html
http://www.angelfire.com/tn/frankgerman/mosaic6.html


I really like the one with the blue face/tail and yellow body.


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## Msfreebird (Sep 23, 2007)

MaryOfExeter said:


> ...In my shoes and in my hair!
> 
> Look at all these neat-o birds I found:
> 
> ...


That's the one I like too, #3


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## george simon (Feb 28, 2006)

*Very Intresting*



MaryOfExeter said:


> ...In my shoes and in my hair!
> 
> Look at all these neat-o birds I found:
> 
> ...


*Hi BECKY, Very intresting,I also like the yellow with the blue tail and head,but I feel that it may not be a true MOSAIC. Think about some of the breeds that are head and tail marked,rollers come to mind,this bird might be a very intresting subject on a GENETIC site,just think if this is not a mocaic but and new new genetic factor. WOW a red body with a black head and tail or a brown body with a black head and tail as I said very intresting.*GEORGE ............


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## spirit wings (Mar 29, 2008)

If it was not mosaic, what would you breed with it to get that pattern again?


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## birds+me=happy (May 21, 2009)

These mosaics are really cool. It sounds like you have to get lucky to breed one.


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## MaryOfExeter (Sep 30, 2007)

spirit wings said:


> If it was not mosaic, what would you breed with it to get that pattern again?


No idea! But it does seem awfully clean cut in coloring to be a genetic mistake, you know? 
Recessive red/yellow bleeds but nothing like that I don't think. I suppose it is possible? Never know. They didn't discover all this stuff at once, so there's always a possibility of finding new colorations and genes to play with. It'd be cool to be able to test breed all these not-so-mosaic looking birds to see what they're made up of.


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## MaryOfExeter (Sep 30, 2007)

Something that came to mind when I saw that bird was the pretty gold color on the neck/chest of larks or egyptian swifts. I can see the bars on the wings, but do you think it's recessive yellow regardless, or just ash-yellow?
Argh. I need to stop looking at it. Everytime I do, I want it more  LOL.


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## george simon (Feb 28, 2006)

MaryOfExeter said:


> Something that came to mind when I saw that bird was the pretty gold color on the neck/chest of larks or egyptian swifts. I can see the bars on the wings, but do you think it's recessive yellow regardless, or just ash-yellow?
> Argh. I need to stop looking at it. Everytime I do, I want it more  LOL.


*Hi Becky, I was thinking dilute recissive red,or a dilute homozygous indigo,, both RR and INDIGO are modifiers of blue The gene pool for fantails is loaded with all kinds of genes. All one needs to do is check out the fantails at most shows they are loaded with color and modifiers.* GEORGE


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## spirit wings (Mar 29, 2008)

MaryOfExeter said:


> Something that came to mind when I saw that bird was the pretty gold color on the neck/chest of larks or egyptian swifts. I can see the bars on the wings, but do you think it's recessive yellow regardless, or just ash-yellow?
> Argh. I need to stop looking at it. Everytime I do, I want it more  LOL.


I wish you would buy it, and breed it so we can check out the youngs..


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## jbangelfish (Mar 22, 2008)

*Hi George*



george simon said:


> *Hi BECKY, Very intresting,I also like the yellowwith the blue tail and head,but I feel that it may not be a true MOSAIC. Think about some of the breeds that are head and tail markedrollers come to mind,this bird might be a very intresting subject on a GENETIC site,just think if this is not a mocaic but and new new genetic factor WOW or a red body with a black head and tail or a white body with a black head and tail as I said very intresting.*GEORGE ............


I guess it depends on what we mean by "true mosaic". If that only refers to the type that is the result of "bipaternalism", those are few and far between.

There are many out there that come from almond breeding, where the break comes in large clumps of color, instead of the desired even splattering of color. These have been called "somatic patch mosaics" but nobody has come up with a good explanation of why they occur. It seems that something has gotten mixed up in the stipper gene, responsible for almond, to where the desired result is not achieved. Many almond breeders just get rid of these as it's not what they are trying to breed. Link Martin has been breeding some of them together to make more, with some success, I believe. Joe Powers produced over 100 of them while moving the stipper gene into Komorner tumblers.

Lynn Kral breeds show type Indian fans and produces quite a few mosaics. It seems to run in families of birds. It's been quite a while since our big discussion of mosaicism and I can't remember if she said almond was involved but I think it was and she has several pretty dramatic examples, similar to the one of hers that is in this group shown.

One of the most dramatic that I've ever seen was the one that Terry posted here, a roller that was recessive red, black and white. There was supposedly no almond in the background of that bird. Some of them are pretty hard to explain without the bipaternalism but I'm quite certain that many are made without the two sperm donation, just a mixup somehow, as in the almonds.

I have a fig hen that is spread ash, intense, but she has a yellow frontal snip. I can't explain her except to suspect the bipaternal type. I also have a couple of almonds with large somatic spots, I call them almond mosaics. One almond hen had a large black spot on her breast and neck and now that she is an adult, it is blue. I can't explain that either.

It does seem that almond (stipper) has produced a new modifier that is making so many of these almond or somatic spot types of mosaics. The somatic spots do seem to occur in certain areas such as shoulders and rumps. There are even some in Europe that would indicate that we may be able to control these patterns at least to a degree and produce mosaics in desired patterns. Link Martin is working on kite winged almonds. I think we'll learn a lot more about this over the next few years.

Bill


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## YaSin11 (Jul 23, 2009)

Becky,
wow! Thanks for posting the links. I had never seen 'mosaics' before. Facsinating! George, are 'mosaics' breed that way? I was reading something about 'multiple-sperm-fertilization', is _that_ how they came about? 
Becky; I like both off the fan-tails...just beautiful. Peace


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## MaryOfExeter (Sep 30, 2007)

The only mosaics, by my definition, are those who appear to be 'genetic mistakes'. Whether that be two sperm/one egg or just two embryo fusing.
When almond comes into play and gives mock mosaics, then I'd personally rather call those 'almond mosaics' or something else specifying that they are not TRUE mosaics (as far as we can tell).

I think there's a lot of things we have yet to find in pigeons. I know there's a few theories on mosaicism in pigeons. Do we know which way they are made for sure yet? The sperm or the fusion? It seems like they could both occur. Then there's the almond mosaics. And the ashes carrying blue and the RR's bleeding colors. And there may be a lot of other complex combos or maybe simple things we haven't even found yet, that make these weird looking 'quilts' on our birds.


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## MaryOfExeter (Sep 30, 2007)

All the almond stuff doesn't stick very well in my brain, so don't eat me if I get this wrong  BUT, after I started thinking about it, the bird did sort of remind me of the yellow looking almonds (classic almond, yes?). Maybe with just huge 'flecks', which just happened to cover the face and tail  LOL. But if it WAS almond, I would assume it would have some of those flecks on the wings too. Maybe. I don't know. Just trying to come up with something


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## spirit wings (Mar 29, 2008)

MaryOfExeter said:


> The only mosaics, by my definition, are those who appear to be 'genetic mistakes'. Whether that be two sperm/one egg or just two embryo fusing.
> When almond comes into play and gives mock mosaics, then I'd personally rather call those 'almond mosaics' or something else specifying that they are not TRUE mosaics (as far as we can tell).
> 
> I think there's a lot of things we have yet to find in pigeons. I know there's a few theories on mosaicism in pigeons. Do we know which way they are made for sure yet? The sperm or the fusion? It seems like they could both occur. Then there's the almond mosaics. And the ashes carrying blue and the RR's bleeding colors. And there may be a lot of other complex combos or maybe simple things we haven't even found yet, that make these weird looking 'quilts' on our birds.


just was thinking, you know calico cats, they have three colors, some of these birds remind me of that...how is calico created? could it be the same with them as it is with pigeons? or can you even compair mammals with birds when it comes to color? here is a bit online about the calico....could it be the same in pigeons?
Females and the O gene
Females get one X from each parent, so they get two O genes. 
However, here's where things get exciting. 

In most genes, the capital letter designation is for dominant genes, and the small letter designation is for recessive genes. In most genes, if the cat gets one dominant gene and one recessive gene, whatever is the dominant gene will show up and the recessive gene won't actually appear on the cat. The cat is said to "carry" the recessive gene, which means s/he can pass it on to offspring. 

So by that rule, if the female cat gets one O and one o (Oo), she should be orange, right? 

Not with this gene. 

With the O gene, the O and o actually combine their efforts, displaying both orange and non-orange, along with white. This is called a mosaic. This creates the true tricolor -- the calico or tortoiseshell. You must have the combination of the O and the o to create this, which means the cat must have two genes. Since only Xs can carry the O gene, the cat must have two X genes -- or in most cases, be a female. 

Female patterns: 

OO = orange cat
oo = non-orange cat
Oo = tricolored cat


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## jbangelfish (Mar 22, 2008)

*Similar at least*

Calico cats are always female, as far as I know. I can say that I've never seen a male. Are there exceptions? 

Another oddity that I remember about cats is blue eyed white male cats are deaf, if I remember right. Are there exceptions? I don't know.

Correct me if I'm wrong, I know nothing about cat genetics.

Tri colored pigeons are another story and the almond pigeons are a common example. They exist in both males and females but the genetics of them is odd in itself. Almond male pigeons can produce male and female almond offspring. Female almond pigeons will produce male almonds and normal females.

We have seen tri colored pigeons that have nothing to do with almond, some are just two colored plus pied or white flighted, such as white flighted archangels. We have also seen some very fine examples of mosaicism such as the roller that Terry posted some time back. That one was said to have nothing to do with almond.

In a conversation with Bob Mangile, he said that almond is a form of mosaic and it's hard to argue against it. Just a matter of what we wish to consider as mosaic. The first mosaics that most of us remember were the really odd examples that look like two pigeons coming together to make one. In those, it's hard to argue Doc Hollander's proposal that sometimes, two sperms fertilize one egg and could be from two different fathers, making some very unusual looking pigeons.

If we consider that male pigeons can carry quite a number of factors that we normally do not see, it is not difficult for me to think that some of these just got mixed up and we are seeing things that should not be together, such as intense and dilute on the same bird. If this is something akin to stipper (almond), we already have a good foundation for something odd to appear.

In the case of hens, they can be check but carry bar, I don't see why it is so far fetched as to imagine that sometimes there is a short circuit in the genes that allows both to present themselves on one bird.

Paying close attention to how these mosaic birds breed, we are going to learn a lot more about what made them in the first place. Not so much as in "Do they produce more mosaics"? but "Do they produce offspring of only one of the factors that they show or both or what"?

I have been collecting pictures of mosaics for some time and keeping track of what the parents were, when I am able to obtain that information, hoping to find some patterns in how and why they occur. It seems that there are several different types of mosaics and I think most of them are something other than the bipaternal types.

Bill


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## rudolph.est (May 14, 2009)

*Calico cat genetics*

Hi Bill and all,

Calico in cats is caused by one of the X chromosomes in females being 'turned off' and forming what is called a barr body. The colour is carried on the X chromosome. If the female cat has one X chromosome with the orange allele and one with the black (wild-type) allele, the result is a black and orange cat because the black was turned off in some cells and the orange got turned off in another. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calico_cat#Genetics)

True - calico cats cannot be 'normal' males, the only have one X chromosome. It does happen that XXY males are born and are calico but that is a genetic anomaly and these males are usually infertile.

I think what you describe as somatic mosaic could be similar. As could be some of the St genes. Different genes get turned on and off depending on circumstance. (though the turning on and off mechanism would be a little different and could depend on hormonal factors aswell)

The fantail (yellow - blue) in question does not look like a mosaic to me either. It could be a combination of archangel bronze (neck and body) and some bronze to bronze out the wing and leave the tail unaltered. It is a beauty though!

Regards,
Rudolph


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