What I believe has occurred is a mutation on the G* Locus. You can’t imagine how brain twisting it’s been. The mutated gene symbol for the time being will simply be g(x). It appears to behave like a recessive gene.

It works something like this ;

G* gerbils can carry this just as if they had a normal recessive g.  Gerbils that have two copies of g(x), will not produce Slates or Azures. They will only produce Satins;

Satin (gxgx) X Satin (gxgx) = Satin offspring

Black (Ggx) X Black (Ggx) = Black and Satin offspring

In most colors though, a single g(x) allele has very little effect.  There maybe some slight dilution noticed on a non-agouti background, but it’s hard to notice much effect on Agouti backgrounds.  An exception to this rule is the Slate coat colour.  Here a single copy of g(x) is much more noticeable and gives us a lighter coloured Slate coat with distinct blue tones.  After discussion with Sandy Van Esynga, we decided this new coat colour was worthy of a name, and entitled it “Azure Slate” which hopefully will lessen any confusion with this colour and the Dilute black (dd-Blue) now that this gene is also in circulation within the U.S.A.