Emily Chan
He was captured in 2009 and brought to the Foping Nature Reserve in Shaanxi, where he lives with his mother. Overall, they sequenced the genomes of 35 giant pandas. Among the group were two brown ones.
They found that the unusual brown coloring was due to a missing sequence in the pandas’ DNA. Qinling pandas have a mutation in a gene called Bace2.
It is related to pigmentation. Another 192 black and white pandas were tested, and none of them had that version of Bace2.
The interesting part is that Qi Zai is brown, but his mother is black and white. The researchers think that Qinling pandas have a dominant gene for black and white coloration and a recessive gene for brown hues. Both parents must carry the recessive gene for a brown panda to be born.
The scientists also examined preserved tissue from Dandan and discovered that she had the same recessive trait as Qi Zai.
The findings were significant for genetic research, as it was the first time that a missing genetic sequence was linked to color variation.
The brown fur of the Qinling pandas is the result of inbreeding. The population lives in isolation at altitudes of 4,000 to 10,000 feet in the Qinling Mountains, which has allowed the brown coloration to be passed down for generations. It is estimated that between 200 and 300 Qinling pandas live in the wild today.
