Solid black (chicken plumage)
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Solid black plumage color refers to a plumage pattern in chickens (Gallus gallus domesticus) characterized by a uniform, black color across all feathers. There are chicken breeds where the typical plumage color is black, such as Australorp, Sumatra, White-Faced Black Spanish, Jersey Giant and others. And there are many other breeds having different color varieties, which also have an extended black variety, such as Leghorn, Minorca, Wyandotte, Orpington, Langshan and others.[1]
Color is an important feature of most living organisms. In the wild, color has great significance affecting the survival and reproductive success of the species. The environmental constraints which lead to the specific colors of birds and animals are very strong and individuals of novel colors tend not to survive. Under domestication, mankind has transformed all the species involved which have thus been freed from environmental pressures to a large extent. Early color variants were mostly selected for utility reasons or religious practices. In more recent centuries color varieties have been created purely for ornament and pleasure, fashion playing a surprisingly large part in their development. A bewildering array of colors and patterns can now be found in the domestic fowl.[2]
The occurrence of solid or nearly solid colored black plumage is widespread among avian species. Such phenotypes result mostly from single mutations associated with an increase of eumelanin deposition.[3] In the case of the domestic fowl, two genetically different black plumage phenotypes have been described.