www.katharinasittiche.de - Turquoise (Blue) - The Lineolated Parakeet

Autosomal recessive heredity - Turquoise (Blue)

This colour is a really attractive and popular mutation. The whole plumage shines in a strong light green-blue. The black plumage marking is completely visible. Also the elbow spot and the black tail feather tips can be observed at the male Lineolated Parakeets (of course with the same problems and restrictions as observed at the green birds: see general - description ").
Beak and toes are flesh coloured and look like these of the green birds. Sometimes there are lighter claws observable, so the veins are visible. At my turquoise hen I was able to observe this just until an age of about one year. Then the claws got darker as these of her green partner.
It is worth mentioning, that there don't exist real blue Lineolated Parakeets. That's why this colour variety is called "turquoise", and not "blue" (Martin, 2002). But in general language use the denotation "blue" is often used exclusively. Besides the notation "turquoise" in English the name "parblue" (partial blue or blue-green) exists, which describes the mutation quite good as well. The Belgian and Dutchman characterise the colour variety as "zeegroen", i.e. sea green. Opinions differ how the "parblue" Lineolated Parakeet (as others like the Ringnecked Parrot or the Peachfaced Lovebird) should be called. The discussion probably will go on for a while, but until then I will use the denotation "turquoise" on these pages.
If you have a close look at turquoise Lineolated Parakeets, you will see, that there's always a yellowness. The reason for the parblue mutation is a partial inactivation of the gene, which is responsible for the blue mutation. If one day this gene might be inactivated completely, which is possible by another mutation, this would lead to pure blue birds, as known at e.g. the budgies. These birds are not able to produce the yellow pigment Psittacin any more, whereas the parblue or turquoise birds still produce a small amount.
Thus is isn't possible neither to breed real white Lineolated Parakeets, i.e. albinos. There's always a yellow glimmer as well. So the notation "creamino" seems to be more suitable.

turquoise	x	turquoise	=	100% turquoise
turquoise	x	green	=	100% green/turquoise
turquoise	x	green/turquoise	=	50% turquoise 50% green/turquoise
green/turquoise	x	green/turquoise	=	50% green/turquoise 25% green 25% turquoise
green	x	green/turquoise	=	50% green 50% green/turquoise

Last update on February 21st, 2005