Tutorials

The following genetics tutorial was created by myself, Silver (#11). You are more than welcomed to link back to the TygrasDB for future reference on how genetics work. :) However, if you wish to use any of the text and/or images below on your website in order to create your own genetics tutorial, you MUST message or e-mail me first for permission. I put a lot of time and effort into creating this tutorial, and I would like credit where credit is due. ;D

That being said... this tutorial is far from complete. I will be slowly adding to it whenever I have the time, but for now, I will only be covering Generation 2 Tygra with "full" genetics. This will be explained in further detail below.

Genetics: The Basics

Many of you have probably been members of Wajas at some point. If so, then you may be familiar with the idea of overlaying the parents' images in order to determine what the pup will roughly look like.

Unfortunately, Tygras' genetics system is much more complicated than that. In fact, I would advise you to dismiss the idea of overlaying images completely.

For this tutorial, I will be using my two custom Tygras, Matahari and Bulan. Please take a moment to view their profiles and become familiar with the layout.

Before I explain how colors are determined, it is important that you understand what I meant previously when I said "full" genetics. Generation 1 Tygras, or customs, will always have "full" in Genes I-IV (1-4). This simply means that the markings (in this case, Leopard, Lollipop Eyes, and Lunar) will be "fully" visible. Because Matahari and Bulan both have full markings, and because they have the same three markings, any offspring that they may have together will also have "full" markings for those same three markings.

How the colors are determined, however, is somewhat randomly determined. This is why simply using image overlays of the parents will not help you determine what the offspring will look like in any way whatsoever. Now, let's take a look at two cubs that Matahari and Bulan have given birth to, Tygra1 and Tygra2. Again, please take a moment to compare and contrast the two cubs.

Although they are from the same parents, they are obviously very different in appearance. In order to better understand why this is the case, let's take a look at the parents' base colors. Matahari's color is
(Sky Blue), whereas Bulan's color is (Light Gray). If we were to create an image overlay of JUST THESE COLORS (not of the Tygras' images as a whole!), we would get (Light Blue). We'll call this color the "predicted" base color. The following image has both the predicted base color and the actual base colors of both Tygra1 and Tygra2:



As you can see, there is a somewhat random factor as to what the actual base colors are, but by looking at the predicted base color, we can get a rough idea of what color the offspring's base color may be. We do not know if the color will be lighter or darker than predicted, but we DO know that it will be somewhere in this blue color range.

The same concept can be applied for the offsprings' eyes as well:



Sounds simple enough, right? Well, here's where things get complicated. Take a look at Matahari and Bulan's profiles again. Since Matahari's Leopard and Lollipop markings are (White), and Bulan's Leopard and Lollipop markings are (Dark Blue), we can assume that the offsprings' Leopard and Lollipop markings will be somewhere between that white and dark blue range (basically, any shade of lighter blue). Indeed, this is the case when we look at Tygra1 and Tygra2's profiles again.

But what about the Lunar markings? Matahari's are (Orange), whereas Bulan's are (Sky Blue). In this case, it's not as easy to see what the possible colors are for the offsprings' Lunar markings. Because orange and sky blue are opposites on the color wheel, we cannot know if the markings will be some variation of orange or some variation of sky blue. The best you can do in this situation is to cross your fingers and hope for the color you want.

So what do you do if you want the cubs' markings to fall within a certain color range? You'll simply have to find another mate whose markings' colors are similar to your Tygra's markings' colors. That, or you could breed your Tygras couple multiple times, and hope that one of those times, you'll end up with your dream cub. :)