Chinchilla black velvet: description, features and interesting facts

2024 Author: Priscilla Miln | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 00:21

Today, chinchillas have firmly taken a leading position in the ranking of pets. A little earlier, people were only interested in them as a source of unusually beautiful fur. In principle, they are still studying and improving their qualitative characteristics. In the near future, a significant improvement in livestock is planned. This is facilitated by the rather strong popularity of black chinchilla fur for tailoring.

Among all the color variations of these exotic rodents, the black color of chinchillas is one of the most valuable and popular. In addition, carriers of this genome are often used to improve other color variations of these funny animals.

Origin of black chinchillas

The appearance of this color has its roots in the mid-50s of the last century. The first black velvet chinchilla was born in 1955. It happened on a farm in the United States.

This girl was born from a standard color pair. Her unusual appearance led to the nickname Dirty Pug. Next year flock with a unique girlwas sold to Davenport, Washington. Their owner was the farmer Gunning, who has been breeding chinchillas since the 40s. It was he who became the founder of the fur industry in the state of Washington. Gunning was also considered one of the best world judges at chinchilla shows at that time.

To the great regret of all lovers of the described animals, in 1955 a fire destroyed the whole herd along with a unique girl - a black velvet chinchilla. Over the next year, the farmer was actively engaged in buying animals for a new herd.

From now on, Bob has been intensively working on the development of the mutation present in the unusual girl. A little later, an unusual boy was born on the farm. Outwardly, it resembled the standard color. The only feature of the baby was that there was a small black mask on his face. Chinchillas brought he althy offspring and after a few years they gave several litters. Most of the cubs were of the standard color, only a few of them were distinguished by the presence of a black mantle.

Selection of black velvet chinchillas

It was Gunning who took up the selection of this color. After some time, when selecting the best dark pairs, he managed to breed animals in which the dark color already spread through the neck to the entire back. As a result, only the stripe on the abdomen remained light in the animals.

By 1960, a new mutation of chinchillas, black velvet, was introduced to the world. At that time it was called gunning black velvet. It is this color variation of chinchilla blackvelvet we see in our time.

Genomic features

Connoisseurs of black animals affectionately call them "touch of velvet" or "black velvet". The black chinchilla, whose genotype features have already been sufficiently studied, has some genetic features. This color is considered heterozygous, that is, two genes are immediately present in one allele - dominant (black) and recessive.

Black chinchillas have one negative feature - their color contains the so-called "lethal gene". This leads to the fact that as a result of crossing two chinchillas with a black gene, the embryos either die during development or do not develop at all.

Description of the black chinchilla

The black chinchilla is effectively used to enhance the saturation of other colors of its counterparts. As a result of this, animals are successfully crossed with chinchillas of any color, with the exception of velvet.

Description Chinchilla black velvet has some distinguishing features. These include:

• A well-defined mask on the muzzle.
• Gloves are clearly drawn on the paws with diagonal stripes.
• Deep black fur.
• Highlight areas around the eyes are not allowed.
• The black pigment should be evenly distributed from the spine to the sides.
• Scorch marks and ripples are not allowed.
• Light transitions from a dark back to a white tummy are unacceptable.
• Clearly low tummy line.
• The muzzle is round.
• The skeleton of an animal is knocked down.
• The paws are wide.

One of the main anatomical features of the black chinchilla is the hump on the nose.

Crossing black chinchillas

Black velvet babies are lighter in color at birth, darkening with age. Quite often, black velvet chinchilla sits down with individuals of other colors. As a result of this, various color variations of the planned puppies are obtained. The most common variations of cases are those shown in the table below.

Color of one chinchilla	Color of another chinchilla	Possible offspring colors
Black velvet	Standard (grey)	Black Standard
Black velvet	Beige	Standard, beige, brown and black velvet
Black velvet	Homobeige	Beige, brown velvet
Black velvet	White	Standard, white, black and white velvet
Black velvet	White-pink	Velvet - black, brown, white-pink, white. Also beige, white, standard color

Popularity of black chinchilla in production

Chinchilla black velvet is extremely in demand in furindustry. This is facilitated by a clear decorative contrast of the black color of the back and white abdomen. The velvet texture of the black chinchilla is very pleasant to the touch.

Red shades are not allowed in fur production. Cold blue tones have an advantage. No less important is the pure white belly of the animals. Fur with a clearly defined transition of the color of dark sides and a white belly is also considered the highest quality.

Chinchilla black velvet, reviews of which are mostly positive, are popular not only in fur production, but also as a pet. Some, however, believe that velvet individuals are not very sociable, but in practice it becomes noticeable that the complex nature of individual animals does not depend at all on the color of the fur.

Interesting about chinchillas

Few people know that the structure of the skeleton of the chinchilla allows it to shrink vertically. Thus, the animal can crawl through unusually narrow cracks.

Besides this, the black velvet chinchilla does not shed at all. At the same time, in case of stress or danger, the animals can, nervously, shed their hair.