Liveship!Amber vs Fitz and the Fool!Amber (click for better quality)
Do we think Malta recognised her right away, or only when she announced herself? Would Althea have known her if word had not been sent that she was coming?
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I don't understand amber. How does it work? What does it do? How is it different from wide band/golden/ect.? Please explain
Ohoho, you invited me to talk about my favourite gene!
Amber is the mutation of the MC1R (melanocortin 1 receptor) gene. Recessive mutations here are associated with red and yellow color varieties in lots of species: rabbits, horses, mice and humans, to mention a few examples.
So what does this gene do? Replaces the black pigment with red. That's the gist of it.
The regular orange color of cats is a different gene, but they have similar molecular backgrounds: red and amber are both phaeomelanin-based colors. Phaeomelanin is one of the two most important pigment types in mammals, together with eumelanin. Eumelanin is responsible for black and brown colors, phaeomelanin is for reds and yellows. Black, chocolate and cinnamon are the traditional eumelanin-based cat colors.
Eumelanin-based tabbies have both eumelanin and phaeomelanin in their fur, the alternation of these two pigments make the agouti hairs banded: the lighter bands have only phaeomelanin. Phaeomelanin-based colors have only or overwhelmingly phaeomelanin in both the lighter and darker bands (the difference is probably the amount of pigments).
Now wide band does something different: it extends the lighter bands, so the coloration becomes less eumelanin-dominated (when there's eumelanin present). Thus, yellow cat.
The first figure shows basically the comparison of the hairs of a black and a red or amber tabby, the second is how golden hairs look like:
That's the difference between amber and golden. One of them changes the color of the agouti bands, the other changes their size.
Here's a red, an amber and a golden cat for comparison:
The amber tabby in the middle has darker orange tabby pattern, the black golden cat still has a black tailtip, black feet, sometimes even some black markings on the face.
The coolest thing about amber is that unlike red and golden, the kittens born with a lot of eumelanin, and they gradually lose it as they mature. Like this:
Nowaja (Galaxy vom Ritterclan), amber smoke with white
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