Hiyah! ^^

So I was surfing the interwebs, and I found a picture of what is known as a 'Somatic Labrador Retriever' . And it got me wondering if lions could get it.

After an exhaustive search O.O I was able to turn up three pictures of the same lion at different ages, and here they are;

Somatic lion cub

As an adolecent

Same somatic lion as an adult

What is Somaticism?

Somaticism is a mutation that occurs during fetal development. It is different from chimerism as it simply 'turns off' genes in random areas, while Chimeras posses two or more different strains of DNA on the cellular level.

Color genes stack (crash course in dog genetics), and with somaticism these stacks get removed, so there is a hole of sorts, resulting in the bottom gene showing through (black).

What makes this a mutation, and not a Marking?

Somaticism is a true deformation, incapable of passing through to an animal's offspring, or being bred (unlike albinism, overbite, and stork bites).

Somaticism would be a rarer color mutation, and probably cover more than just a lion's leg. Sadly, this lion I have as an example is possibly the only somatic lion. But when one looks at a somatic lab, you could get a good idea of how many splotches would come through.

Other examples of Somatic animals;

.adult horse

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