What Colour Is That Sparrow? A Case Study: Colour Aberrations In The House Sparrow Passer Domesticus

In this paper 16 distinct, heritable colour aberrations (mutations) in the House Sparrow are described, based on specimens found in museum collections, records of individuals seen in the wild and from bird breeders keeping aberrant coloured sparrows in captivity. Based on the frequency found in the museum specimens Brown is the most common mutation in the House Sparrow, followed by Ino and Albino. Besides the mutations there is also a, presumably, non-heritable aberration called Progressive Greying described. Progressive Greying is in fact by far the most common colour aberration found in the species but was, in the past, always assigned as ‘Partial Albino’ without its real nature being understood. This paper will give some insight in the nature of Progressive Greying.

Citation

Hein van Grouw; What Colour Is That Sparrow? A Case Study: Colour Aberrations In The House Sparrow Passer Domesticus. International Studies on Sparrows ; 36 pp.30-55

Type

Journal Article

Item Description

This journal is a pure open access journal and is published under a Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license.
NHM Repository

ISSN

1734-624X

EISSN

2450-0488

License

openAccess

cb