Alpacas Magazine - 2010 Spring

Harlequin Grays

These are grays with dark spots or speckles over the

face and often over the whole body. They do not

typically have any white on them, and are thus not a

risk for making BEWs. Again, this is likely a differ-

ent gene than any of the other kinds of grays. The

inheritance pattern is not clear for harlequin grays.

Harlequins are fairly common in suris, due to the

large influence of Condor and Romantico on the

U.S. suri herd. They have produced many harlequin

grays. It could be dominant or recessive. I am still

investigating these. Right now, the number of crias

from crosses is too low to make any kind of mean-

ingful guess, but hopefully, we will collect enough

breeding data to say dominant or recessive soon.

Indefinite Grays

I am not sure what to call these animals, but they

are the ones which have a uniform color without

white or dark spotting, but white or black fibers

throughout the fleece. I am also not sure of the

inheritance pattern, nor how these relate to indefi-

nite-fleeced animals that are not classified as grays.

More data is needed to sort out the inheritance

pattern(s) of these animals.

How to Breed for Gray

My recommendations for how to breed for a gray

cria depends on which kind of gray you are starting

with and your preferences for silver versus rose gray,

spots or no spots, and white markings or not. For

classic gray, I recommend only breeding to solid

non-whites. You should get 50% gray crias (on aver-

age) from such crosses. While gray to gray breedings

yield 65% gray crias, they also represent a 25%

increased risk of loss due to the lethal gray phenome-

non. Further, you typically get a MUCH bigger

fleece boost breeding gray to fawn than you can get

breeding gray to gray. It does not matter which part-

ner is solid and which is gray. If you only like silver

grays, then breed silver grays to blacks and you

should get 50:50 silver grays and blacks (on average).

If dark-head roan gray is a simple recessive gene,

then dark-headed roans bred to the other dark-

headed roans should make dark-headed roan crias

almost all the time. Otherwise, dark-headed roans

should be bred to carriers of the roan allele for a

lower percentage outcome of roans, but possibly a

bigger fleece boost.

For harlequin grays, breeding two together would

seem a good bet, but until we figure out the inheri-

tance pattern of the gene, it is just a guess. The

same holds true for Indefinite Grays.

Help with Research

Good luck. If you wish to help with my research,

please call or send an e-mail to me for more infor-

mation. We are sequencing candidate genes for

color and pattern (Mit-f, Agouti, ASIP, MC1r, and

KIT, among others) and also mapping the genes for

color and pattern using STR loci developed by the

Alpaca Genome Project. You can send blood sam-

ples from your gray crias and the parents that made

them to help with my research. Blood should be

drawn into EDTA vacutainers (purple tops) and

overnight-mailed with a blue-ice pack to:

D. Andrew Merriwether Lab, Dept. of Biology

210 Science III Bldg., Binghamton University

Binghamton NY 13902-6000

Lab phone: (607) 777-6707

E-mail:

andym@binghamton.edu

Andy Merriwether, Ph.D. is an Associate Professor of

Anthropology and Biology and Director of Graduate Studies in

the Department of Anthropology at Binghamton University,

State University of New York. He has a B.A in Medical

Anthropology (1988), B.S. in Biology (1988), and an M.S. in

Genetics (1989) from Penn State University, and a Ph.D. in

Human Genetics from the University of Pittsburgh (1993). Andy

and his wife, Ann, own Nyala Farm Alpacas in Vestal, New

York. Andy has been working on the genetics of camelids

since 1997 and can be reached in care of

Alpacas Magazine.

Alpacas

Magazine

The Harlequin gene is likely a different gene than any of the other kinds of grays.

The inheritance pattern is not clear for harlequin grays.

Caveat: As each of

these kinds of grey is

caused by a different

gene, it is possible for

an animal to be more

than one kind of grey.

While rare, this can

arise from breeding

different kinds of

greys together. For

example, an animal

could be both roan

grey and classic grey.

Adding to the confu-

sion, a roan grey

could also get a copy

of a white spot allele

from a parent with

white spot. Neruda

may be like this, as

some have reported

he has a white mark-

ing, but he is clearly

a dark headed roan

phenotype, and has

very rarely made

classic greys unless

bred to them.