Aussie Finch Forum

I posted a so called lilac and a white breasted cock in mutation section.seeing that both paerents are purple breasts and Breast colour can't be split for all 3 colours. I would say its not lilac but a purple breasted cock, the colour is also same as purple breasted hens, note: 2 purple breasted parents, white breasted cock so parents purple split white breasts,
Any comments

I've had a recent email conversation with David Myers regarding the lilac-breasted mutation in which he said:

"LB is dominant to WB. When you get a bird with one LB gene and one WB gene the bird shows the lilac breast. In normal birds where the WB gene is absent you need a double dose of the LB gene before the bird gets a lilac breast. Same sort of inheritance as in the yellow-headed Gouldian."

So lilac is dominant to white-breasted and autosomal recessive to normal (purple-breasted). So it is possible for a purple breasted bird (or 2 of them who are mated together) to carry both the white-breasted & lilac-breasted mutations (be split for both).

Hope this helps.

My understanding is you need 2 Alelles for the different breast colour to show
Purple split white [2] lilac split white [2] purple split lilac[2], so you cannot have the 3 breast colours split on the same bird.did you have a look at the 2 birds posted. Orange headed,white breasted and the red head

If that were the case it wouldn't be possible for a green bird to be split to blue and AY for example. There are many examples in bird mutations of double splits and triple splits, etc.

You have a good point, check gouldian finch centre, it tells you on there why it's not possible

Agree Tiaris, take the yellow body star for example as you very well know. Craig

Craig can you be more clearer on your comment

Craig's example of yellow body star is a combination of 2 separate mutations, the production of which requires Star finches which are split to both the fawn & cinnamon mutations. Similarly in Gouldian head colour, a red-headed male can be split to both yellow-headed and black-headed.

If Gouldian finch centre says this is not possible it is simply wrong.

I'm not that up with gouldian genetics but from the posts i have read it is that lilac breast and white breast are allylic.
which means they occupy the same position on the dna strand so when a bird carries one gene of each colour they express generally a mix of the 2 colours but with lilac breast being dominant over white breast it shows the lilac breast.
There are several examples of this in parrots (blue and par blue)(lutino, lime and platinum) and also a few snakes mutations.