eChipmunks

What do dilute and agouti mean when about chipmunks?

I am going to buy a chipmunk. we already have the aviray build but when you are buying chipmunks different chipmunks are different things even if that same chipmunk is the same breed as another e.g two siberian chipmunk, same gender, but one could be agouti and one could be dilute. please help me because i havent got a clue

Public Comments

1. I don't really know anything about chipmunks, but almost all rodents have two basic forms of color: agouti and dilute (often black). Agouti is the 'wild type', the brown ticked hair that wild rodents generally have. The dilute type, often black, is the recessive form of agouti. Dilute is also a term for other genes that modify color ('diluting' it). In rats, for example, there is a 'blue dilute' gene which, if the rat has both copies of it, he will be blue. I hope this helps!
2. Hi, An agouti colour chipmunk is the wild type. A dilute is almost the same colour but is lighter, due to being diluted by selective breeding. Chipmunks these days come in a lot of different colour varities, but they are all the same species.