Yellow Black Syrian Hamsters

This picture shows Praline, a Yellow Black Dominant Spot mother and her three daughters.  Two are YB DS like her while one is a YB.  Although the mother's YB spots are difficult to see in this photo, she has reasonably good spotting for a YB DS.  The daughter right in front of her may have even more spotting, but she has not yet gotten the black tipping to her color.  That will come in the next month or so.  The daughter retreating in the upper right corner has far less YB spotting and will not be as good of a DS as her mother and sister.  She does has some spotting, though, so she will not be considered a Black-eyed White.  The lone yellow black in this picture has also not gotten her black tipping yet.  Once she does, she will look far more like the above pictures of the Yellow Black with decent black tipping.

Yellow Black is the combined color of Yellow and Black.  Black is a simple recessive gene while Yellow is a sex-linked dominant gene.  For males, Yellow Blacks are given the symbols aaToY while females are given the symbols aaToTo. Yellow Blacks start with a rich yellow undercoat but only minimal black tipping.  At about two months of age, the black tipping gets significantly darker giving an animal with dark tipping.  The rich yellow undercoat remains. Many of the US Yellow Blacks are either not the proper yellow color and/or do not get the dark black tipping.  Although they make equally good pets, they do not score well when judged.  Often, these animals carry the Cream gene.