O/T - Genetic question - albinos

[KrisK]

The O/T - Moose thread, has pictures of two albino moose. At first, it didn't dawn on me that this is likely a cow with last year's calf. I always thought of albinos as being a rarity but it seems that there is a large number of albino moose in this area and have been for years. Would this just be a lot of interbreeding or how would it be so prevalent? And is it true that albinos normally are less healthy? Anyway, these pictures have my curiosity piqued and I know there are folks on the boards who like this scientific stuff

[silhouettestable]

Even if it is a cow and calf, the bull must have also carried the gene for it to show up in the calf. Otherwise I believe that the calf would have been dark but carried the recessive albino gene from the cow. Whenever the recessive genes double up they become the dominant colour, and of course, the more albinos that turn up and then go on to reproduce, the more widespread the albino gene will become. This is all just my theory by the way, but we actually did study genetics a bit in my wildlife biology classes when I was in college (years ago now - that was back in '91-'92) taking Fish & Wildlife.

It's the same as brown-eyed and blue-eyed people. If a blue-eyed person (who let's say comes from a family of all blue eyes), has a child with a brown eyed person (from a family of all brown eyes), because brown is dominant the child will have brown eyes, but carry the recessive blue gene. If that brown-eyed child who carries the recessive blue gene grows up and has a child with another dominant blue-eyed person the child will most likely have blue eyes and carry a recessive brown gene. But, if they have a child with a person like themselves (brown-eyed who also carries a recessive blue gene), it could go either way, depending on how the genes combine. One recessive gene by itself cannot bring out a characteristic, but if 2 recessive genes combine then the characteristic will show up. I hope I haven't made that too confusing. There are different possible ways for the genes to combine, which is of course the reason that children from the same parents can have different eye and hair colours, and of course why puppies in the same litter can have different colours, markings and coat types. The results just depend on what dominant genes are inherited, or if two of the same recessive genes combine.