A Labrador with a Peculiar Genetic Condition

Meet Bull, the calico patterned lab.

You’ve probably seen the calico pattern on cats before, but not on labs. Since labs come in solid colors it is believed that Bull is a chimera – or 2 genetically different labs in one body.

Apparently, Bull isn’t the only lab with this condition. Some animals also have this condition (like cats, as mentioned above).

Read the excerpt below and know more about Bull and his strange condition:

Bull is thought to be a chimera because of his unique coat.

Wikipedia defines a chimera as “a single organism (usually an animal) that is composed of two or more different populations of genetically distinct cells that originated from different zygotes involved in sexual reproduction.”

In layman’s terms a chimera is one particular animal that genetically is two animals, i.e. a dog that is also his very own twin.

Bull is apparently a chimera both black Labrador and yellow Labrador.

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Another explanation may be that when Bull was conceived a phenomenon called somatic mutation took place. The type of thing tends to occur more commonly in Labrador and Golden retrievers; no one knows why, and the mutation is not inherited.

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Image 2 source: reddit