User:HIlde Wischinka/sandbox/The Ferret Coat Colour book

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The Importance of Colour The ferret1 is unique amongst all polecat species - it is the only one who lives amongst humans. Its habitat is not the forest or field, nor the river’s edge or semi-desert. The ferret’s habitat is a cage or living room, a showground or rabbit infested paddock. And more - the ferret is the only polecat species that sports a wide range of coat colours. Polecats who live in deep forests are very dark in colour. Mum and Dad are nearly black and so are their kits. Those who live in more open country and near human settlements tend to be lighter in colour. But not as light as the steppe polecat who prefers to live in open grasslands and semi-deserts. The sandy colour of the steppe polecat blends well into the loess and sandy soils of its habitats. The colour of a polecat’s coat depends very much upon where it lives. Photo 1.1 shows a European polecat male of very dark colour. Ferrets come in many different colours. Living amongst humans has allowed the ferret to express a wide range of coat colours that its wild relatives, the polecats, could not. Natural selection weeds out any colours in a wild species if it fails to offer a survival advantage. But selective breeding can encourage the widest range of coat colours possible, allowing colours to pass down from one generation to the next. In the Wild Colour means Camouflage In the deep dark forest a dark coloured polecat has a better chance of not being seen by either its prey or its predator and thus has a better chance to survive and produce offspring of the same colour, whereas a black polecat in open grassland would quickly fall prey to a hunting raptor. Conversely a sandy coloured polecat in the dark deep forest would be highly visible to its prey and predator alike finding it hard to catch a meal, but be an easy meal itself. Colour means Recognition Polecats and other wild animals are very choosy about who to mate with, as every zoo breeder of endangered wild animals knows. It may smell right but if it doesn’t look ‘right’ they may give it a miss. For example, it could very well be that a black polecat who grew up amongst black polecats - every polecat it has ever seen was black - may not recognise an albino or sandy polecat as a potential mate. Or worse, a sibling of a different colour than the rest of the litter might be bullied by its littermates or even rejected by its mother. Being the odd one out is not a survival feature in the wild. In Captivity, Colour also means Pleasing Humans Breeders may outdo each other by producing animals of unusual coat colours or breed for certain colours people want. Once the albino, the white ferret with pink eyes, was the preferred hunting companion. Recently, with the rise of the show and companion ferret any colour could become fashionable - for better or for worse. Ferrets are not fussy about the colour of their mates Their kind comes in many shades and patterns. They are used to that. Mum and Dad of the same colour can have kits of a range of colours. Life amongst humans not only eased the pressure of natural selection but also, by the practice of selective breeding, encouraged the proliferation of any coat colour or pattern that is genetically possible. 1 Footnote 1: By way of explanation, the ferret is usually accepted to be a domesticated european polecat. It has been domesticated over a period of several thousands of years or perhaps even longer. The “wild” colour is these days generally referred to as “sable”, although they were often previously called “polecats” in Australia and the UK until quite recently. The move towards the term sable and away from polecat was requested by our friends in the USA as part of their struggle to have ferrets recognised as domestic. In the USA, “polecat” often describes the skunk, which is a wild species and is notorious for carrying rabies. Some states in the USA continue to prohibit ownership of ferrets as do Queensland and the Northern Territory here in Australia. Lack of Colour may mean Health Problems We are only too familiar with the effect of albinism on the visual system in any species. In many animals white�spotting especially about the head is related to deafness. Dalmatians with the most extensive white areas are often deaf. Nervous excitable pigs are usually very pale or white. The pale australian shepherds have a high incidence of brain, ear and eye problems. Aleutian coloured mink have the dubious honour of having a virus named after them, because mink of this particular grey colour are exceptionally susceptible to the aleutian disease virus, ADV, a parvovirus that infects mink and ferrets. What can I say, other than, when you choose the colour of your coat, choose wisely! Sources: Wallin, M., ‘Nature’s palette’, Department of Zoology, Goeteborg University, Sweden, 2002 Genetics and the Behaviour of Domestic Animals, T. Grandin (Editor), Academic Press, San Diego, Califor�nia, pp 319-341(1998)