# What are these mysterious "smoke" mice?



## madmouse

I recently acquired a pair of mice from a breeder in Ohio (Wildside Exotics). The breeder called them "smoke". She said they originated with a breeder in the UK. According to her, the mice heterozygous for "smoke" have sort of pseudo-himi points. The homozygotes have darker, solid coats. The line also sometimes throws PEWs. I got both a heterozygous and a homozygous doe from her. The het doe has dark red ruby eyes. Her points are exaggerated when compared to the regular himi (they cover much more area). The light part of her coat has some dark hair tips. The **** doe I got has the same dark ruby eyes as the het doe. Her coat is dark and solid, but the undercoat is very pale. The breeder says that some of the other smoke mice she's produced have been even darker. The length of my mouse's coat is such that it allows a lot of the pale undercoat to show through, making her look nearly marked.

I have seen some reference to smoke and colorpoint smoke as unstandardized colors. I think that these colors have been described as a/a b/b c^e/c^e d/d (smoke) and a/a c^h/c^e d/d (colorpoint smoke). But it seems to me that my mice are not quite the same thing and the term "smoke" is just causing confusion.

Does anyone have any clue about these mice? Do you think the smoke and colorpoint smoke genotypes fit them? It will be awhile before I breed them as they're pretty young, but I'm thinking of pairing the homozygote to a black self with a well known background, just to see what pops up. And I'm thinking I might pair the pointed heterozygote to a himi buck to test for c^h. Is this a decent plan? Can you think of a better one?

Questions, answers, comments and corrections welcome!

Here are pix of the mice in question:
This is the pointed heterozygote










This is the homozygote










And here's the homozygote's coat rubbed the wrong way to show the undercoat


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## TwitchingWhiskers

I have no idea, but the homozygote made my mouth drop to the floor. So beautiful and nothing I have ever seen before! :drool


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## Cordane

The only time I have ever seen a mouse with a white undercoat was in an agouti line at Thapsus mousery.
No clue either - sorry.


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## PPVallhunds

Can't be smoke they have black eyes.

Think untill you do some test breeding they will be a mystery but as she also gets PEW whatever it is its prob going to be a mix of genes in them making the colour rather then one gene making it.
The herto one looks siamese/himmi to me. The dark tips are properly it's shading.

If the other one had black eyes I'd go with agouti based with a mix of cch, ch and c. But as its eyes are pink won't be cch as the eyes would be black.


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## ThatCertainGlow

In love with that white undercoated mouse. Although I'm seeing those tips in other colors in my head, which is not likely. Dilutes are currently making my head hurt. Good luck with them.


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## Mc.Macki Mice

Whatever they are..they are very pretty mice!


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## Cait

The white undercolour reminds me of pearls. Might be worth asking SarahC if she has seen anything like this when she was recreating pearls using silver greys.


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## SarahC

I did reply and then deleted.They do look like pearls but pearls don't have pink eyes and I've never had any of the various shades of pearl and silver grey throw out a pink eyed mouse.


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## madmouse

Does anyone here know anything about ruby eyes (ru/ru)? I was reading about various ru alleles on jax.org and saw that all of them diluted the coat to various shades of gray and/or brown. I don't which ru gene(s) are in the fancy or how common they are. Is this a possibility?

SarahC: what is the genotype of a pearl or silver gray?


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## SarahC

I'm afraid genetics are not my thing and I can't offer any insight ,mousebreeder will probably be able to answer.I will get you some pictures of the various shades I have.If it wasn't for the eyes I'd be convinced yours were dark pearls.


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## Cordane

According to Finnmouse..
Pearl is : a/a B/b C/* D/* P/* si/si
http://hiiret.fi/eng/breeding/varieties/pearl.html

And Silver Grey is : a/a B/* C/* D/* P/* si/si
http://hiiret.fi/eng/breeding/varieties ... _grey.html


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## SarahC

The mouse on the bowl is a pearl and she's the mother of all the others who are all various shades of ticked grey.









and a pearl with wet fur which reveals the white undercoat


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## andypandy29us

love the pearl and the smoke? mice  very pretty


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## Celica

I have a similar looking mouse. It is genetically a chinchillated blue. 
It's parents are chinchilla carrier agouti.


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