The Frill Mutations Mutation 1 - Crested (= Bonten in Japanese) - The first type of frill is the crested mutation that causes the feathers on the head to grow downwards resembling a "Beatles" haircut or a Gloster Corona canary. Unlike some statements, it is NOT lethal to mate crested to crested although doing so sometimes results in a double-type crest with lack of coherence and symmetry. The Japanese breeder we imported from recommends NOT to mate crested to crested. The Japanese cresteds are called "bontens" and they have several types, some looking neat like a Gloster Corona canary and others with long head feathers pointing up in all directions. It appears that this is a dominant or codominant mutation since offspring of normal head and crested will contain either all crested (probably if the crested parent was homozygous dominant for crested) or 1:1 crested: normal (probably if the crested parent is split or heterozygous). To my knowledge there have been no controlled crosses published to demonstrate this fact, but it is somewhat accepted that crested head is dominant in some way. Images of Crested or Bonten Society Finches |
