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ticklechin

Well-known member
Joined
Apr 14, 2009
Messages
8,087
Location
modesto CA
I was looking around for some information and found this, I am sure I did not know this or maybe I am crazy and I did?


Chinchilla chinchilla and C. lanigera were formerly considered one species until some researchers recognized size and color differences among localities. Since the wild populations of C. chinchilla are rare, it may not be possible to further study this taxonomic issue. They are currently considered separate species based on ecological and morphological data (IUCN, 1982). The species may have coexisted in the northern part of the range of C. lanigera and the southern range of C. chinchilla (Jimenez, 1996). Male hybrids from the two species are sterile but females are fertile and may mate with males from either of the species. Although male offspring from a female hybrid are likely to be infertile as well (Morris, 1965).

In the U.S., it may be possible to raise C. chinchilla in captivity. Though most efforts to date have failed. Most of the chinchillas in captivity in South America are C. chinchilla (Morris, 1965).
 
I remember reading that on wikipedia when I was first looking into them. There's links to drawings of the two if anyone's interested and too lazy to google :) Also Chinchilla chinchilla was formerly Chinchilla brevicaudata so if species weren't confusing enough they're changing the names on us.
http://viking_chinchilla.tripod.com/sitebuildercontent/sitebuilderpictures/shorteared.gif

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikiped...220px-Chinchilla_-_croquis_comparatif.svg.png

Also, the only other (if I remember right) living species in the family classification is the viscaha.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plains_viscacha

And yes, I'm one of those people who get caught on wikipedia for hours and go from golden retriever gentetics to serial murderers in England to Typhoid Mary and the legalities of holding her against her will to Pacific Islands. Luckily today I just had to type a few things to pull up links from what i remembered and don't have 40 tabs open waiting to dig through...
 
speaking of differences like that, while in the store yesterday i was waiting for them to get some big bags of litter down with the forklift, so i was waiting reading a chinchilla book i found. (Actually had some decent information in it, i was surprised. Even advocated getting chins and stuff from breeders as opposed to stores.) It mentioned that some time ago 13 chins were brought to the US. And that all chins here now are direct decedents of one (or two i guess) of those original 13. Is this true?
 
I've read 11 were caught, and one was born and one died on the trip over here, and that group is where most of the genetics our chins come from. Most of the 11 caught were boys too (I think 4 were girls?) Since then some new captured animals have been brought into the breeding pool, but it's mostly from them.
It's been a while so I don't know where I read what, or maybe I am remembering the 11 wrong instead of 13, I probably got my info from a lot of breeder's info pages when I was first looking into getting a chin. I'll browse around and see if I can get a few links.
 
a bunch of google results (which are likely to be less informed than going through breeder info, but was faster)
links saying 11
http://ponytrailchins.org/custom.html
http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/ptop/plain/A57221219
http://animals.pawnation.com/chinchillas-andes-3054.html
http://www.cheekychinchillas.com/faq.html
http://www.dogbreedinfo.com/pets/chinchilla.htm
http://www.livescience.com/28131-chinchillas.html - has some bad diet info I hate that.
http://animal-world.com/encyclo/critters/chinchilla/chinchilla.php
http://www.chinchillas.org/pets/chinestates/history.html
http://www.jagscustom.com/chinchilla_information.htm
http://www.chinchillachronicles.com/chinchilla_habitat.html- this says three were female
http://books.google.com/books?id=LZ...=onepage&q=chinchillas 11 descendants&f=false

Saying 13
http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/112264/chinchilla
http://chinformation.com/history.html
http://books.google.com/books?id=Qm...=onepage&q=chinchillas 13 descendants&f=false

http://books.google.com/books?id=m2...=onepage&q=chinchillas 13 descendants&f=false
http://www.merckmanuals.com/vet/exotic_and_laboratory_animals/rodents/chinchillas.html
This one says "The original chinchilla fur color in the wild was mottled yellow-gray. Through selective breeding, the most common color seen is dark blue grey (dominant fur color gene). Other colors have emerged as mutations of the original standard color. Eye color may be black or pink to red due to coat color genes. Homozygous white and homozygous black combinations are lethal."
yellow-gray seems odd and i didn't think homozygous black did that? there are different blacks though i think?

Maybe 11 brought by Chapman from Chile and 2 later? Either way, a dozen animals is a small breeding pool. And it took 23 guys 3 years to catch that many and another year to slowly bring them down the mountain.
 
Black is the tov gene. Black velvets were originally called gunning blacks, shortened to black. Tov can not exist in homozygous form. So the lethal factor is whites and the tov gene
 
Wen it's talking about yellow grey it means simply that standards used to have terrible fur coloring and careful selection has improved it to the blue grey we think of.
 
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