Chemical analysis of melanin pigments in feather germs of Japanese quail Bh (black at hatch) mutants.

Bh (black at hatch) is a mutation of Japanese quails which causes darkening or lightening of the plumage in heterozygotes or homozygotes, respectively. We chemically analyzed melanin pigments in feather germs of Bh mutant embryos and in feathers of adult animals. Dark brown dorsal feathers of wild-type adult animals had white barrings, but heterozygous ones lacked clear barrings. The feathers of wild-type and heterozygote animals contained both eumelanins and pheomelanins, the latter being more pheomelanic. On the dorsal skin of 10-day old wild-type embryos, longitudinal stripes from black and yellow rows of feather germs developed; two or three longitudinal rows of black feather germs and then two or three rows of yellow feather germs next to the short central feather germs. Heterozygous embryos appeared black in plumage pigmentation, due to the presence of 'gray' feather germs in rows of dorsal feather germs that corresponded to yellow rows in wild-type embryos. Homozygous dorsal feather germs did not develop the black and yellow longitudinal stripes, but were brown. Chemical analysis showed that embryos of each genotype contained both eumelanins and pheomelanins in the feather germs; however, the eumelanin content in homozygous feather germs was very low. These results suggest that the Bh mutation causes pheomelanic changes in feathers of quails.