Lunar

The Lunar mutation is a striking genetic event that activates when a riardi inherits both the Ultra-Bright mutation and the Dove color. Instead of a standard dove-colored coat, the riardi displays a unique purplish-silver hue, shimmering with a soft luster from birth. This distinctive shade sits between the colors of ash and dove.

As the lunar riardi ages, their fur undergoes a gradual visual transformation. Each hair slowly becomes transparent from the mid-shaft to the tip, while the purplish-silver color remains at the base. In their elderly years, this color deepens into black, though the translucent quality of the hairs persists. Additionally, the Ultra-Bright mutation causes any non-lunar-colored fur to pale significantly, turning white if the color was already at its second-palest expression.

This mutation is naturally found in both opal and ore riardi, but can also be passed through blended family lines. Although some riardi believe their moon-shadowed and illuminated fur patterns mimic this coloration, the exact reasons for the progressive color shifts throughout a lunar riardi's life remain a subject of curiosity and speculation.

Mutation: Dark Side of the Moon Lunar

These riardi are a striking, rare variation of the Lunar mutation that presents a visual contradiction to their standard counterparts. They display a deep, dusky purplish-grey of the colors: astral, belladonna, and/or datura, with or without the lunar color. This inversion from light to dark hues occurs when the Ultra-Bright, Melanism, Lunar, and Cascade mutations all co-present in the same individual.

The specific shade of the Dark Side of the Moon riardi’s coat is determined by the intensity of their melanism. Astral is a darker hue and more purple than the lunar color, and it appears in areas affected by partial melanism. Belladonna is a deeper hue that is more potent than the astral shade, and it appears with full melanism. The third-deepest and most intense of these hues is Datura, which is the color that appears when the Cascade mutation is present.

While a Dark Side of the Moon riardi's primary hue is determined by the intensity of its melanism, multiple shades can coexist within the same individual, creating a complex and multi-hued fur pattern. This phenomenon is a direct result of the varying expression of melanism across different parts of the body.

A riardi that inherits a form of partial melanism may display the deep, shadowy hue of astral as subtle markings on a base coat of standard lunar color. However, if the riardi also carries a dormant or recessive copy of the gene for full melanism, the darker belladonna color can emerge in patches or splotches, most often across their body, similarly to the pitted surface of the moon. The rare datura hue- as the most intense expression of melanism- is most likely to manifest in a focused area of the fur, such as a single stripe or spot, as a rare and potent marker of its unique genetic makeup. Instead of the standard black frost seen on a regular melanistic riardi, the Cascade mutation harmonizes the lightening and darkening genes to produce a more subtle, color-shifting effect.

The frost effect that melanism typically offers instead becomes a subtle ticking or shading which deepens the Dark Side of the Moon purple-grey colors. Astral-colored riardi see this as a subtle effect which deepens their color in certain lighting, resulting from partial melanism. This effect is more pronounced and velvet-like in belladonna riardi. The frosted effect is at maximum potency in datura riardi, whose fur appears to absorb light. The hairs are deepest black from mid-shaft to tip, with the datura hue visible as its deep undercurrent.

Dark Side of the Moon colors will eventually become a part of broader riardi genetics.