#pseudomelanism

[punk-speedchunk]

DAMN NEIGHBORHOOD KIDS DONE COLORED MY ZEBRAS IN

[whatcoloristhatcat]

This is my boy Laszlo. He's been mistaken for a bengal, but he's definitely not. I've also been told he's a melanistic tabby but i struggle to find any pictures of cats that actually look like him

i’d say he’s what’s called pseudomelanistic! (we don’t know exactly what genes cause this yet) this happens when an excess of melanin is produced, making dark markings much more prominent. this is also called abundism !

dx: a black classic tabby with pseudomelanism/abundism

that link doesn’t have any cats that look exactly like him, but as pseudomelanism like this seems to be a random mutation and not following some standard, there could be a lot of different things that cause it depending on the cat and it could look pretty different between cats

[thiswildcuriosity]

Spotted zebras, rock art, and doing science from your living room - Three Things I'm Curious About This Week.

[moobloom]

some pictures of Tira, the polka dot zebra!

[thoughtlessarse]

A polka-dotted zebra foal stands close to its mother at the Maasai Mara game reserve in Kenya. The foal has a condition called pseudomelanism, a rare genetic mutation in which animals display some sort of abnormality in their stripe pattern - Photograph: Yasuyoshi Chiba/AFP/Getty Images

Click source for more Week in Wildlife photos.

[vannjaren]

A bunch of stunning mutants.

The top images show zebra, leopard and tigers with pseudomelanism/abundism - the same type of mutation as seen in king cheetahs (but I shall resist the urge to cheetah-spam and instead show some individuals from underappreciated/under-recognised pseudomelanistic species)

Also thrown in for good measure are a piebald moose, erythristic leopard, melanistic serval and leucistic serval.

[wolflion]

Melanism (or melanosis) is the occurrence of an increased amount of dark pigmentation in an organism, resulting from the presence of melanin. It is the opposite of leucism and albinism, which occur because of a lack of melanin or other types of pigment.

Abundism is the occurrence of excessively abundant dark markings (such as spots, stripes or other patch types) due to increased dark pigmentation on the coat, fur or skin of some animal species. As the number and/or size of these markings increases, some overlap and merge causing the effect of pseudomelanism where the animal appears completely black.