What is the difference between a charcoal and an ebony?

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MMMTDF

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Joined
Feb 26, 2010
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51
Location
Colorado
I was thinking a couple days ago about charcoals, and I read a little bit about them, so basically they are standards with the same color stomach? Then I thought about ebonys, aren't they close to that sometimes? I know they must be a substantial difference, but I don't know what it is, does anyone else?
 
This was in another thread a couple days ago, but i believe charcoals are not produced in the US anymore, they are only in the UK and still hard to find. I could be wrong but I'm sure someone will correct me on that. As for ebonies, theres different shades from light (like a dark grey all around, belly and back same color) to extra extra dark (completely black all around). I know the ebony I have is a medium and he does look like a charcoal color, but he's grey with black all over. Here's a pic.

img0688.jpg
 
http://www.davidson-chinchillas.co.uk/pages/home.php

That is the website to Claire D on here who breeds charcoals. They are a recessive mutation that works the same as a violet or sapphire. The parents each have to carry the charcoal gene in order to produce a charcoal offspring. Charcoal is not an ebony but they can look LIKE a light ebony. I wouldn't say they are standard wraps. They have a very distinct "charcoal" look to them and you can tell the difference between them after seeing a few pictures.

Like Kim mentioned, there are very few true charcoals in the US, if there are any at all. There are breeders that claim to have pure charcoal lines, but they are so hush hush about it that no one can prove one way or another if they have charcoals. There are breeders in the UK that are working with the mutation, like Claire.
 
Google "Davidson chinchillas" and look through their pictures of charcoals or maybe Claire can post pics of charcoals if she sees this thread. Charcoals, like ebonies, also have color which wraps around the belly but they have a much more matte look to the fur.

Ebonies have color which wraps around the belly but have a more glossy-type appearance.
 
Charcoals are a type of Ebony. Ebony refers to a phenotype - any chin with a solid, wrapped belly. There are many different mutations that produce this phenotype - some are dominant, some are recessive, at least one is accumulative. The Broucke charcoal is a recessive ebony mutation.

At some point in chinchilla history, breeders stopped keeping track of which ebony mutations they had and/or bred so many of them together that they could not determine the genotype of the offspring. Thus, the majority of the ebonies in the United States have an unspecified genotype - we just know they have grey/black bellies. The Broucke Charcoal mutation very well could be floating around in the US, disguised because it is a recessive, we may never know.

Claire D has charcoals that have not been bred with other ebonies, a few other breeders in the US claim to have them as well but are not forthcoming about them. Others may say they have charcoals in order to sell an ebony.
 

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