Art done by the amazing @vigoburrito (and I'm not saying that because they are my partner).
Its time for Sona Genetics! The time where I look at a sona/character and take a stab at what their genotype is based on their colors, and any lore.
Anastasia here is a grey strawberry roan base with striped hooves.
Since I have a history of Anastasia (I built her after all!) I know her father is a grey(black base) and her mother is a bay roan. I also know that she is a chestnut base, because chestnut is the base for strawberry roan.
Referring back to my horse genetics research, I can use what I know to determine a genotype for Anastasia.
Since her father is a black base grey I know that he is giving a G allele (G being the dominant grey gene which causes greying), but because she is chestnut based we can't be sure if he gave her a B allele, which causes black coloring.
Since her mother is bay roan we know she gave her the R allele, which causes the Anastasia's roan coloring, but we can't be sure of anything else once again because of Anastasia's chestnut base.
Chestnut is cause by a homozygous ee expression. The E gene determines restriction on black pigments, and prevents expression. The e allele is the most restrictive, and also recessive. Fun fact breeding a chestnut horse to another chestnut horse will always result in another chestnut.
Going alphabetcally we know Anastasia is __ __ CC dd ee F_ Gg pp Rr ww __.
We don't know Anastasia's A or B genes because ee prevents either from being expressed. She might be have a the black causing gene from her father (B) but we have no way of knowing based on her color. Likewise she could have they bay (A) gene from her mother, but ee prevents us from seeing it.
The C gene causes further restrictions, and since she isn't palomino, cremello or perlino, we know she is homozygous for the big C's as all the genes on that loci are incomplete dominant/recessive.
We know the D gene is homozygous dd because the Dun gene is dominant. Since she isn't dun at all she doesn't have the D gene.
Because she's chestnut based and we know chestnut is a recessive color caused by the E allele we know her E loci is ee.
The gene is the F gene. F gene determines flaxen mane and tail. Flaxen manes and tails only show up on chestnut based horses, so since she doesn't have a flaxen mane and tail she has at least the F allele.
The G gene is the first heterozygous gene that we know both alleles. This is because grey is a dominant color in horses, so you need a grey parent to get a grey horse. Because Anastasia has one grey parent we know she carries one grey (G) allele and one normal (g) allele. Likewise this also holds true for the roan gene, so we know Anastasia is Rr. (Another note, within real life RR is deadly, so all roan horses are Rr. )
The P gene causes lightening on the inside of the legs and belly, but that would have changed her base to a 'blond sorrel' (sorrel is also chestnut. Since this needs the dominant P allele, she is pp because she doesn't have any blonding. This also holds true for the W gene which determines if a horse is true white, which requires the dominant W allele.
The last gene is the Z gene, which causes silver dappleing (different from the dappling that may happen with grey horses). This gene is likely not present as her foundation breeds (Shire, American Saddlebred, Marwari) but because it doesn't show up on the chestnut base so we can't be sure.
So fellow gene nerds how's my educated guess? Anything I should have considered? Nerdy enough for you?
For my non gene nerds, how's my explaination? What terms would you like explained better? Any questions about how I deduced her genotype from her picture (phenotype?)
For my Furrys, anyone have a sona/character they'd like me to attempt? Non standard colors welcome! Also would welcome any background you may want to offer!
Simply message a picture, reblog with a picture or place a picture in a note and I'll let you know if you've been picked!
