woah big image
been meaning to do this FOREVER but heres some "basic" info behind yotavuș genetics and other general stuff. when making ocs i... Do somewhat adhere to genetics + ethnicity + other stuff. obv its not as straight forward as this; certain alleles are wayyyy more dominant in comparison to others, and a lot more than just base coat affect eye color and white splotching patterns (and there are so so so many things regarding stripes that i just couldn't get into on this im sorry) but this gives you. the Stuff.
heres a quick link to a much higher quality version of both images RIGHT HERE!!
under the cut is a text overview of the big images.
IMAGE ONE
Base fur color: always subsumed by white spotting. influences eye color, the saturation of the ruff/matti, and somewhat affects the stripe colors (not every base coat color can take on every stripe color). No yotavuș is without stripes.
Tumbleweed
ranges from a light brown to a warm tan, with a very red matti. found around the equator. All types usually have pink or black eyes.
TT- strong tumbleweed
Tt - tumbleweed
Yellow(Amber)
yellowish-gold to a pale yellow, saturated matti. Found in northern Katteșuvi, and across most of Vǒtiyǎcke. All types usually have pink or green eyes.
Tc - tumbleweed-light amber; a ticked color
tC - light amber
Fawn
A wide range of tan and beige colors. Found in northern Șotuŧahtěnu, as well as western Ranihikk. With the exception of normal fawn, these tend to have paler matti. All types usually have green, yellow, or black eyes.
tt - fawn
Ll - silver-ticked fawn, sometimes just called "ticked fawn"
TC - white-ticked fawn
TL - silver-ticked tumbleweed, also called "false fawn"
Cream
Self explanatory creamy colors. Not quite white. Tumbleweed-silver has a saturated matti, and usually has pink or yellow eyes. Found within the polar biomes of most continents. The other two types can be found further south, and usually have pink or green eyes.
Tl - tumbleweed-silver
cc - cream
tc - pale fawn
White
Found in the south of Katteșuvi and Șotuŧahtěnu. Matti saturation varies due to diet and environment.
CC - off-white; saturated matti, usually pink or yellow eyes
Cc - pale cream; medium matti, usually pink, green, or yellow eyes
tl - true silver; very pale matti, usually green or yellow eyes
Black*
Found in the far north of Șotuŧahtěnu, as well as northwestern Ranihikk. Usually green, yellow, or black eyes. Pale matti.
LL - dark gray
Gray
Found nearly everywhere, but more concentrated when you get further from the equator. Usually have green, yellow, or black eyes, with the exception of warm gray, which only has the latter two.
Cl - warm gray; medium matti
tL - ticked silver; pale matti
cL - cool gray; pale matti
ll - lilac; light-medium matti
CL - mottled gray; pale matti, unusual patches of discoloration
*Melanism, produced by the the successful birth of the cl combination (which requires other conditions to even be viable) is also considered a form of black fur. This will always have black eyes, and very deeply saturated matti.
Leucism is a condition that can affect yotavuș as well.
Base coats can also have variations such as orca (top part of the body darkens in the womb) and point (the extremities darken). Most individuals have a solid base coat (CC, Ccˢ, Ccᵇ). Unlike Earth animals, this isn't dependent on external temperatures.
Stripe Colors: There are four main stripe colors, which can be regular (DD, Dd) or dilute (dd). An additional white-spotting mutation can also produce "double-dilute" colors when white spots overlap certain diluted stripe colors. Places where a white patch overlaps with a Chocolate stripe become its dilute form, and white a patch overlaps with a diluted chocolate stripe becomes the special variant. Individuals may appear to have a full body of these stripes only if they have an extreme amount of white spotting.
Black
BB. Found on all: Cream, White, Black, and Gray. Also found on white-ticked fawn, false fawn, and ticked fawn.
Dilutes to: Dilute Chocolate
Red-Black
Bb, Bb¹. Found on all: Tumbleweed, Cream, and White. Also found on fawn, white-ticked fawn, false fawn.
Dilutes to: Cherry Chocolate
Chocolate
bb, b¹. Found on all Yellow and Tumbleweed. Also found on cream, pale fawn, fawn, white-ticked fawn, false fawn, off-white, pale cream, and lilac.
Dilutes to: Light Brown
White-Mutates to: Taupe
Cinnamon
b¹b¹. Found on all Yellow, Cream, and Fawn. Also found on tumbleweed, off-white, pale cream. A-variants of dilution are paler and more vibrant, and only found on off-white, cream, pale cream, and light amber.
Dilutes to: Red-A, Red-B
White-Mutates to: Gold-A, Gold-B
White-spotting: Normal white spots (WˢWˢ, Wˢw, Wᴰw¹) will occur at the palms, the soles, the back of the ears, the base of the tail(underside only), and the tip of the tail. Eyebrows are also usually white.
Wᴰ is a trait that causes white-dominance. It usually comes with mild vision issues. w¹ is a spot-deletion allele.
ww: +0-30% white spotting from the regular places
Wᴰw: +30-50%
WˢWᴰ: +50-100%
Melanin abundance can change up how white the spotting is, across the whole body. This also darkens the matti.
ww¹: tan spots
Wˢw¹: ticked tan spots
w¹w¹: no spots at all. there is genes for the patterning of the spots, but they dont Show Up.
True albinism is caused by the WᴰWᴰ mutation, which causes eyes to be a very very very pale pink.
For most, white spotting outside of standard placements will appear to be beneath the stripes (AA, Aa, Aa¹). Both stripe and white patterning can be passed down from parent to child. The recessive melanin inhibitor lightens spot where white overlaps with stripes (aa, aa¹, this is the thing that causes patches of Taupe and Gold-A/B). This can also make an individual appear mottled or spotty when they aren't genetically. The full strength of the melanin inhibitor (a¹a¹) fully overlaps any stripes, similar to the standard spotting at the back of the ears.
Stripe Patterns: The alleles associated with this are the solid blockers (S s) and the mottled blockers (M m). Sharp is more common in hot regions, Round in cold regions. Solid stripes (ssMM, ssMm, ssmm). Spotty stripes (SSMM, SsMM, SSMm, SsMm). Mottled stripes (SSmm, Ssmm), which have layers of deeper and paler stripe colors.
Symmetrical stripes are obviously not always perfect, but Semi-Symmetrical stripes will have noticeable changes between left and right sides. Asymmetrical tends to favor one side of the body over the other.
Hair
A hair is more a bundle of fibers, which spread apart into a fan shape at the end. Most common are the short types, which can be straight (RR, Rr) or wavy (R¹). Long fur can also be straight (rr) or wavy (rr¹). Curly (r¹r¹) fur is very rare, and is always short.
Learn more about the matti here! The video is incredibly old but the information is still relevant. The neck ruff, while connected in terms of composition to the matti, is largely for show in modern yotavuș, and has use only in emoting.
PAGE TWO
Common Stripe Features (short list)
Facial splotching: undefined patches that don't adhere to a sharp or round type of narrow stripe.
Ear "blacking": this is pretty much standard; back of the ears have a higher concentration of striping. can also be dark all the way through.
Facial stripes: Crossing the nose bridge, the font of the face, behind the eye, or forehead.
Under-eye curl: a swoop under the eye, usually extending from the matti, or a neck stripe.
Chin stripes: usually mimic the loops and curls found on tail stripes.
Under-ear curl: descend from the ear striping, curling under the back of the ear.
Tail loops and arches: circles and arcs on the spine leading down the tail.
Underarm loops: found from the armpits and front of the chest. often coincides with arcs on the underside of the arms.
Ankle banding: loops around the wrists and/or ankles.
Sandal striping: ankle banding that dips down between two or more toes.
Tail rings: loops that go around the entire tail, similar to ankle banding.
Common White-Spotting Features (short list)
Eye patch: encircling the eye.
Nose bridge: front of the face, nostrils.
Ear spot: standard, spotting on the back of the ears. Can be solid or spotted, similar to body stripes.
Throat: front of the neck, sometimes the chin and lower jaw as well.
Filament tips: the very ends of the strands that raise and lower the ruff.
Palms and soles: self-explanatory lol. this is standard.
Extended along limb: an extension of palms and soles, going up the back of the limb and usually spotting at a joint.
Groin: white, gets furrier with age.
Tail tip: also self-explanatory.
White tail: spotting that going down the tail to the base, to varying degrees.
Pants: not mentioned in the image! sad! but white pants made of dense spotting, similar to white tail.
Eye Colors
Pink: the most common, and the most varied. can be a warm, reddish-pink, all the way to a pale- almost icy- desaturated pinky-purple.
Green: a rarer color, found in cool or mountainous biomes. i love finding typos in the images like actively.
Black/Dark: the second most common, if only because it is technically a variant of all other colors, with more melanin. Still, usually happens to yellow or green eyes over pink.
Yellow: a very rare color, found in small pockets worldwide. can be considered odd or unnerving to look at.
GROWTH!
im just gonna retype out the entirety of the text wall i have for this lol get ready.
Infancy
From birth to ~2 years of age(TŦȘ), a young yotavuș is completely reliant on the adults in their life. They had a very strong grasping instinct that lets them lay along a parent's spine and cling to their mane. A young child's fur has a lighter and fluffier texture than an adult's, and at birth this fur will seem disproportionately long. Additionally, the cartilage in the ears is much softer, letting them fold close to the skull. The bones in the tail are also not completely fused, which allows it more flexibility, but also interferes with gait and balancing.
Early/Middle Childhood
While a yotavuș has regular sheds with the regular changing between wet and dry seasons, the coat will continue to grow in as the infant coat until the child is around eight or nine years (TŦȘ) of age. The tail remains flexible, especially at the end. They will have grown somewhat into the length of their infant coat, but are still visibly fluffier than an older child. Proportionally, they are more similar to an adult than an older child would be, with the exception of slightly small ears with relation to the head.
Adolescence
Pre- and early teens are very distinctive, primarily because of the differing growth rates of various parts of the body. The ears will begin to grow to their adult length, still retaining some softness that gives them a bit of floppiness when moving quickly. The arms also grow out quicker than the legs, to the point that some young teens adopt a semi-quadrupedal gait with turning quick corners or just chillings. The facial whiskers above the eyebrows and out of the ears come into their full length as well.
Adulthood
In comparison, an adult yotavuș will be larger, growing into those big ears and arms. The tail stiffens to its final state, and the fur at the tip of the tail and underside of its base becomes denser and longer. The mane grows in as well, which is always slightly longer and stiffer hair than the rest of the body across every ethnic group.
OTHER FACTS
Yotavuș have a symmetrical, four-fingered hand. Fur at the palms and soles is shorter and lighter than body fur, and they have no claws or nails.
Yotavuș had a vestigial rattle. In very few individuals this is still capable of making noise.
Like humans, yotavuș are omnivores. They have a higher preference for meat than we do, and relied more on their natural venom(a mild paralytic) over handheld tools when hunting. Basically a group of adults would hide around and then do a quick chase + pounce on a larger creature to bite it, eventually subduing it to the point that it can't fight back against a killing bite. This venom is produced from birth, so toddlers and pre-schoolers are often rocking some dope tooth caps to prevent incidents during playfighting.
Yotavuș don't produce milk. Infants are fed pre-chewed meats and vegetables, which are mixed with the parents venom (an active choice, not an automatic side-effect of chewing). This is both to further break down the food, and to give the children a gradual immunity to their parents venom (good for emergencies where u might have to snatch up a kid with your teeth to put them on a shelf out of danger; yotavuș arms don't have the same degree of rotation as humans, so placing things above the head is difficult).
