How do jaguars change the skin?

When a young leopard grows, the baby spots on the fur will be replaced by more dignified rosette patterns. Scientists believe they have discovered the mechanism of this transition.

Biologists have long wondered how jaguars and other mammals get their uniform but very characteristic fur. In 1952, English mathematician Alan Turing developed an equation to explain simple chemical reactions creating decorative dots, stripes or stripes for different animals.

However, Turing's model does not solve the evolution of patterns on the skin when animals move from immature to adult.

The jaguar (on the left) and the baby jaguar (on the right) are born with patchy skin.Turing's two-phase model can explain why the last jaguar has patterned rosettes (below the right) and jaguars have pentagonal shapes (bottom left)(Photo: LiveScience)

"Here, we explore development from one phenotype to another, like Turing envisioned in his article in 1952," Maini said.

The team assumed, like Turing, that when a leopard was born, its skin contained pigment cells, which produced two types of chemicals, diffused into the top layer of the skin. These two chemicals, called morphogen, interact with each other to create either dark brown or reddish yellow gray.

With a complex computer model, the team created a two-stage process , each with a different dominant role. To explain the animal's growth, the second phase takes into account parameters, such as chemical diffusion rate and a proportional factor - changes in the computer model.

The team found that the concentration of these diffuse chemicals on the skin determines the spotting characteristics of an adult leopard.

"These morphogenes will theoretically be in the skin, and the phenotype of the coat will be determined by that morrphogen content," Maini said.

However, in fact, scientists have not found the morphogen on animal skin. Therefore, their next step will be to point out these color-coding chemicals.

A jaguar is lying on a tree in Serengeti, Tanzania
(Photo: LiveScience)

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