Whitmoregirl's Wombles

I find that a lot of gerbil owners are confused to what purpose the white markings on their self (coloured belly) gerbils serve.

Well, they don’t serve a purpose per se, but for breeding they do serve a very useful indicator of what kind of spotting patterns you may get should it be bred to a spotted gerbil. *

* Just to clarify, pale and white gerbils and white bellied gerbils do carry these markings, but because of the white on their paws and bellies, you obviously cannot see them, it’s only because of the coloured belly on ‘aa’ types that you can see them.

The spotting in gerbils is unlike most other species, whose spotting is recessive. Gerbil spotting is called Dominant Spotting because it is dominant!, meaning that if the gene is in the animal, it’s characteristics will always appear in the phenotype (ie what the animal’s physical appearance).

Spotting is odd in gerbils, in that there doesn’t seem to be any equivalent recessive at that loci, a gerbil either has it or doesn’t, so if you breed from a spotted gerbil, on conception the embyro is either spotted or it isn’t.
Dominant spotting causes a very mild form of anaemia in gerbils. Embryos with two copies of the gene (SpSp) tend to die before birth because of very severe anaemia; in some extremely rare occasions, some of these pups have came to full term but are either still-born on birth or die shortly after, although this is exceptionally rare and more often the embryo will die in the womb and is simply reabsorbed and replaced.

Because this usually happens so early in the pregnancy, and gerbils produce more embryos than can implant anyway, the number of pups in the litter is not affected. There is a page going into more detail on this on eGerbil, Spotted gerbil litters, which is worth a read
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Who wants to watch the 2008 Bejing Olympics when there are Guinea Pig Games (GPG) going on!

As with the human athletes, Guinea athletes are held in great esteem among their fans, admired for their stamina, prowess and incredible physical feats they can endure, especially for a rodent that can weigh up to and above 2 pounds!

But they should also be admired for the dedication they show toward their chosen sport. Snuffles McSqueeby, gold-winning squash champ of last year’s games, trains for 6 hours a day.

The rest of his schedule consists mainly of trembling in the corner of his hutch.

Guinea athletes want to be taken seriously, but prejudice hangs around the GPG like the stench of an uncleaned hutch.
Many humans see serious animal athletes as “adorable”; they may laugh or condescendingly stroke them – a factor that has always prevented guinea pigs from joining the human Olympics, not to mention having one of their 100 metre runners being “accidentally” stepped on by a human athlete in Barcelona, ’92, after which the Guinea Pig Games Comittee decreed that guineas and humans will compete seperately until viewed as equals.

I think we need some Gerbil Games. Anyone up for a spot of photoshopping?!