Sometimes, the lighter fur is due to shedding but there are coat color patterns that come into play.
For Simon, he's a harlequin coated bun (orange and black), so he has a banding pattern as well as the orange and black stripe pattern. The banding pattern is generally anything on the lower body/belly or parts of the legs where orange is diluted with a buff color mixed into it.
River has a tricolor coat pattern (orange and black broken with white), which tends to be more dilute (lighter colored) than Simon's. Her orange markings are ticked with a bit of her white fur color, which makes them appear a bit lighter in general, but the same orange coat color banding pattern that Simon (her brother/litter-mate) has would apply to her because a tricolor is just a 'broken' version of a harlequin, so you see some of her spots appear much lighter than others on her flanks where the lighter stripe pattern of an orange coat color would appear.
If it helps, take a look at the drawing at the top of this site and focus on the orange bunny. There is a distinct banding pattern I tried to recreate (if you look at the oldest posts on this site from 2012, you'll find the real-life Penny who the drawing was modeled after; she was an orange bun with the banding pattern far more obvious to see). :)
2 comments:
There are parts of their fur that are lighter, are those the results of the shedding?
Hi Mónica!
Sometimes, the lighter fur is due to shedding but there are coat color patterns that come into play.
For Simon, he's a harlequin coated bun (orange and black), so he has a banding pattern as well as the orange and black stripe pattern. The banding pattern is generally anything on the lower body/belly or parts of the legs where orange is diluted with a buff color mixed into it.
River has a tricolor coat pattern (orange and black broken with white), which tends to be more dilute (lighter colored) than Simon's. Her orange markings are ticked with a bit of her white fur color, which makes them appear a bit lighter in general, but the same orange coat color banding pattern that Simon (her brother/litter-mate) has would apply to her because a tricolor is just a 'broken' version of a harlequin, so you see some of her spots appear much lighter than others on her flanks where the lighter stripe pattern of an orange coat color would appear.
If it helps, take a look at the drawing at the top of this site and focus on the orange bunny. There is a distinct banding pattern I tried to recreate (if you look at the oldest posts on this site from 2012, you'll find the real-life Penny who the drawing was modeled after; she was an orange bun with the banding pattern far more obvious to see). :)
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