Pigmentation of sheep. II.The inheritance of colour patterns in black Merinos

Abstract

Within homozygous recessive Black Merinos (ww), in which pigmentation is due to a single recessive gene w, three patterns of pigmentation have been observed – Badger-face (BF), Reversed Badger-face (RBF), and Self-colour (SC). These are shown to be initiated by a series of alleles, wl, we, and ws respectively in decreasing order of dominance, which are allelic with W, the gene inhibiting pigmentation of the wool-growing area in the Merino.The dominance of w_l over w₂ and w₃, and of w₂ over w₃, is not always complete. An "overlap" pattern is described with characteristics of two alleles and whose occurrence is sex-influenced.