The Greywing budgerigar mutation is one of approximately 30 mutations affecting the colour of
budgerigar
The budgerigar ( ; ''Melopsittacus undulatus''), also known as the common parakeet or shell parakeet, is a small, long-tailed, seed-eating parrot usually nicknamed the budgie ( ), or in American English, the parakeet. Budgies are the only spe ...
s. It is the underlying mutation of the Greywing variety. When combined with the
Clearwing mutation the variety is known as a Full-bodied Greywing.
Appearance
The body colour of the Greywing variety is about half the intensity of the corresponding normal variety, and the wing, head and neck markings are similarly reduced in intensity from black to mid-grey.
[ The spots are grey and the cheek patches are pale violet. The tail feathers are grey with a bluish tinge. The overall effect is a very pleasing combination of pastel shades, particularly so in the blue series.
In comparison to other varieties, the grey markings on a Greywing are of a similar intensity to the brown markings on a ]Cinnamon
Cinnamon is a spice obtained from the inner bark of several tree species from the genus ''Cinnamomum''. Cinnamon is used mainly as an aromatic condiment and flavouring additive in a wide variety of cuisines, sweet and savoury dishes, breakfa ...
, maybe a little deeper, and considerably deeper than those on any Clearwing or Dilute. The body colour is deeper than most Dilutes, yet much paler than the body colour of Clearwings.
As with Dilutes and Clearwings, there is considerable variation in the depth of body colour and wing markings of Greywings. Greywings at the paler end of the range correspond with the World Budgerigar Organisation's standard of 50% of the intensity of normal colouring, while those at the darker end approach the depth of colour of normals. Greywings which are split for Dilute are often slightly paler than pure Greywings.
When pure-breeding (homozygous) Greywings are paired with pure-breeding Clearwings the resulting offspring, known as Full-bodied Greywings, are quite distinct in appearance from both parents. They have a body colour almost as deep as the corresponding normal variety and with the rich sheen of the Clearwing, but with medium grey markings marginally darker than the parent Greywing. The tail and flight feathers are like the parent Greywing, but the cheek patches are violet, almost as dark as those of the corresponding normal.
Historical notes
The first breeding of a Greywing in captivity could have been as early as 1875, when the director of Breslau Zoo in Kassel
Kassel (; in Germany, spelled Cassel until 1926) is a city on the Fulda River in northern Hesse, Germany. It is the administrative seat of the Regierungsbezirk Kassel and the district of the same name and had 201,048 inhabitants in December 2020 ...
, Germany, bred a budgerigar with a description exactly matching the present-day Greywing Light Green.[
][
][
] This bird died when six months old, and no further birds of this description were reported for more than forty years.
In 1919 Mrs Ransome[ or Ranson][ of ]Wimbledon
Wimbledon most often refers to:
* Wimbledon, London, a district of southwest London
* Wimbledon Championships, the oldest tennis tournament in the world and one of the four Grand Slam championships
Wimbledon may also refer to:
Places London
* ...
, London, sent an example of a variety she was breeding to J W Marsden, which she called Jades.[ It was later identified as a Greywing green. She bred this from a 'blue-bred green hen' and a 'badly coloured Yellow cock',][Watmough (1951)] so either the Yellow cock was a Greywing and the hen split Greywing, or the bird bred was not a Greywing at all but a deeply suffused Yellow.
G F Hedges established a Greywing strain from birds obtained, it is believed, from the Blanchard aviaries in Toulouse
Toulouse ( , ; oc, Tolosa ) is the prefecture of the French department of Haute-Garonne and of the larger region of Occitania. The city is on the banks of the River Garonne, from the Mediterranean Sea, from the Atlantic Ocean and from Par ...
, France. His first Greywings appeared in 1920.[
] B Jackson of Bingley
Bingley is a market town and civil parish in the metropolitan borough of the City of Bradford, West Yorkshire, England, on the River Aire and the Leeds and Liverpool Canal, which had a population of 18,294 at the 2011 Census.
Bingley railwa ...
in West Yorkshire also obtained Greywings from the same French aviaries in 1923,[
] so it seems likely that Mon A Blanchard was the first to establish the Greywing variety in Europe, although there is an opinion that these might have been Yellows of deep suffusion.[
The Greywing variety was gradually established during the 1920s in Germany, France, Great Britain and Australia, although in Australia the appearance of the Clearwing mutation in Greywing stock soon afterwards led to the two mutations intermingling.
In the early 1920s birds of this variety were known variously as Jades,][ Apple Greens,][ May Greens][ or Satinettes][ in the green series and as Pearls][ or Silverwings in the blue series. One of the first tasks of the newly established Colour Committee of the British Budgerigar Society was to sort out this confusion of names, and on their recommendation the standard name 'Greywing' was adopted.
By the late 1920s the Greywing had been recognised by the British Budgerigar Society as a standard variety, and most of the top breeders had stocks. A Greywing Blue was exhibited at the ]Crystal Palace
Crystal Palace may refer to:
Places Canada
* Crystal Palace Complex (Dieppe), a former amusement park now a shopping complex in Dieppe, New Brunswick
* Crystal Palace Barracks, London, Ontario
* Crystal Palace (Montreal), an exhibition building ...
show in 1931 by Mrs Mallam of Redhill, Surrey
Redhill () is a town in the borough of Reigate and Banstead within the county of Surrey, England. The town, which adjoins the town of Reigate to the west, is due south of Croydon in Greater London, and is part of the London commuter belt. The ...
, and won fourth best in show, and at the same show in the following year Ivor I J Symes gained second place with a team of Greywings bred from a pair he had imported from Germany in 1930.
Greywings continued to increase during the 1930s, but the new mutations appearing around that time, such as the Cinnamon
Cinnamon is a spice obtained from the inner bark of several tree species from the genus ''Cinnamomum''. Cinnamon is used mainly as an aromatic condiment and flavouring additive in a wide variety of cuisines, sweet and savoury dishes, breakfa ...
, Opaline
The opalines are a small group of peculiar heterokonts, currently assigned to the family Opalinidae, in the order Slopalinida. Their name is derived from the opalescence, opalescent appearance of these microscopic organisms when illuminated wit ...
, Ino, Grey
Grey (more common in British English) or gray (more common in American English) is an intermediate color between black and white. It is a neutral or achromatic color, meaning literally that it is "without color", because it can be composed o ...
and Clearwing, began to compete for the attention of breeders. After the war, when stocks were being established again, it was these latter varieties which caught the fanciers' interest, and the Greywing became (and remained) a rare variety bred by only a few specialists. In 1981 it was reported[ that no one was known to have a substantial stud of Greywings, although at least three breeders had or wanted Greywings.
]
Genetics
The Greywing is an autosomal
An autosome is any chromosome that is not a sex chromosome. The members of an autosome pair in a diploid cell have the same morphology, unlike those in allosome, allosomal (sex chromosome) pairs, which may have different structures. The DNA in au ...
mutation
In biology, a mutation is an alteration in the nucleic acid sequence of the genome of an organism, virus, or extrachromosomal DNA. Viral genomes contain either DNA or RNA. Mutations result from errors during DNA or viral replication, mi ...
of the ''dil'' locus with the symbol ''dilgw'', and so is a member of the multiple allelic series which also includes the Dilute (''dild'') and Clearwing (''dilcw'') mutations.[Taylor & Warner (1956)] The Greywing allele is recessive to the wild-type, dominant over the Dilute allele and co-dominant with the Clearwing allele.
The effect of the Greywing mutation is fully visible only in a bird which is homozygous
Zygosity (the noun, zygote, is from the Greek "yoked," from "yoke") () is the degree to which both copies of a chromosome or gene have the same genetic sequence. In other words, it is the degree of similarity of the alleles in an organism.
Mo ...
for the Greywing allele with the genotype ''dilgw''/''dilgw'' or is heterozygous
Zygosity (the noun, zygote, is from the Greek "yoked," from "yoke") () is the degree to which both copies of a chromosome or gene have the same genetic sequence. In other words, it is the degree of similarity of the alleles in an organism.
Mo ...
with the Dilute allele, with genotype ''dilgw''/''dild''. The effect is to reduce the number of melanin
Melanin (; from el, μέλας, melas, black, dark) is a broad term for a group of natural pigments found in most organisms. Eumelanin is produced through a multistage chemical process known as melanogenesis, where the oxidation of the amino ...
granules in both the cortical and medullary cells of feather barbs over the whole body by around 50%.
When heterozygous with the wild-type allele with the genotype
The genotype of an organism is its complete set of genetic material. Genotype can also be used to refer to the alleles or variants an individual carries in a particular gene or genetic location. The number of alleles an individual can have in a ...
''dil+''/''dilgw'' the phenotype
In genetics, the phenotype () is the set of observable characteristics or traits of an organism. The term covers the organism's morphology or physical form and structure, its developmental processes, its biochemical and physiological proper ...
is identical to the wild-type
The wild type (WT) is the phenotype of the typical form of a species as it occurs in nature. Originally, the wild type was conceptualized as a product of the standard "normal" allele at a locus, in contrast to that produced by a non-standard, "m ...
Light Green and the bird is known as a Greywing/dilute.
When the Clearwing and Greywing alleles are both present the genotype is ''dilcw''/''dilgw'' and the bird is known as a Full-bodied Greywing. Both alleles are partially expressed, giving the bird wings like a Greywing and a body coloured like a Clearwing. A fuller description is given under Appearance
Appearance may refer to:
* Visual appearance, the way in which objects reflect and transmit light
* Human physical appearance, what someone looks like
* ''Appearances'' (film), a 1921 film directed by Donald Crisp
* Appearance (philosophy), or p ...
above.
Notes
References
*
*
External links
World Budgerigar Organisation (WBO)
{{DEFAULTSORT:Greywing Budgerigar Mutation
Budgerigar colour mutations