Hopefully you can get more info from someone working with the established chocolate lines but from what I've read:

1. Chocolate is a co-dominant mutation. The chocolates are the visual hets and the super chocolate is the homozygous phenotype.

2. Chocolates have wider dark pattern areas (leaving less width for the light alien head areas) with a rich chocolate color to the dark areas. There is a post several above this one with the title "Chocolate Pinstripe clutch" which is an excellent example of a clutch with chocolate. Sometimes I gather some chocolates aren't that easy to identify and perhaps age helps to tell which are chocolates and which aren’t.

3. I think chocolates are supposed to have extra dark pattern on the belly. I'm not sure how universal this is as I've got a female from a new line I’m calling Garcia that MIGHT be chocolate but she has a mostly clear belly but one of her daughters has a more typical chocolate belly. I've a not heard what the bellies are like on the super chocolate.
I’ve also seen an interesting opinion posted that sable and even the few genetic granites might be related mutations to chocolate. Maybe a new allele complex something like the relationship between lesser and mojave (i.e. distinctly different mutations of the same gene).

I think we could use a "hunters guide to chocolate" about now!

[ Hide Replies ]

• Chocolates - megafatkid69, Sat Jun 27 14:49:52 2009
• RE: Chocolates - RandyRemington, Tue Jun 30 13:31:06 2009
• RE: Chocolates - megafatkid69, Tue Jun 30 14:32:54 2009
• RE: Chocolates - RandyRemington, Tue Jun 30 22:03:29 2009