Define Lacewing

**BarbiePhish** · 10-04-2005, 11:55 AM

I recently bought a female that was said to be a lacewing. She has the beautiful color pattern on the wings, but she is a light turquoise color with a yellow face. I read (after purchasing her) that lacewings are only yellow, almost like lutinos!? Now I'm very confused... Is my budgie really a lacewing? How can I really tell??

**tweets** · 10-07-2005, 05:01 PM

$:\$ I'm certainly no expert at colours but I don't think a lacewing has to be yellow. I had a white bird that was a lacewing, or so I was told. This is a picture of her.

I don't know why the picture turned out so small when I uploaded it but you can probably see that she had cinnamon wing markings and cheek patches. I think I read somewhere that lacewings are one all over colour with spangle like wing markings so I guess that if your bird is two colours it wouldn't actually be a lacewing, but I'm not sure. I hope someone who knows picks up on this one, I would be interested to know myself. A picture of your hen would help.

**Finch Boy** · 10-07-2005, 07:35 PM

No, lacewings are not just yellows...

**kathy5** · 10-08-2005, 10:47 AM

The Lacewing Budgie
-Lacewing White
-Lacewing Yellow

Red Eyed Lacewing Budgie
-Yellow Red Eyed Lacewing
-White Red Eyed Lacewing

**kathy5** · 10-08-2005, 10:48 AM

are you sure she may not be a spangel
can you post a picture?

**BarbiePhish** · 10-08-2005, 08:57 PM

I have never heard of a spangel... She was sold to me labeled a reversed lacewing. As soon as I can get my camera set up, I'll post a pic. It might be a while, though

Thanks for all your help, guys

**wetheril** · 10-09-2005, 02:14 AM

Basically, a Lacewing is both a cinnamon and an ino inherited together and co-expressed on the same gene, and they look like an intermediate between cinnamons and inos (so they can be yellow or white, since inos mean both lutino and albino, and they will have the red eyes that you see in an ino bird).

The genes that determine cinnamon and ino are so close to each other on the "X" chromosome of a bird that they are often inherited together and can act as if it's "one gene". However, there is a phenomenon in genetics called "crossing over" where similar chromosomes during meiosis will physically exchange pieces of DNA. In a rare occassion where you mate a cock that is split to cinnamon and ino to a hen, crossing over can occur in the males's sperm and both the cinnamon and ino gene will hop onto the same X chromosome. If that X chromosome makes it into a female and produces a female chick, the chick becomes a lacewing.

**kathy5** · 10-09-2005, 06:17 AM

here are some pictures of spangels

the thing about spangels is that the wing makings are reversed on a normal bird the wing has the dark color in the middle part of the feather with the light out line

my kiwi has normal colored budgie wings

**Finch Boy** · 10-09-2005, 08:03 AM

Someone local sells lacewings..... I want to buy one!!!

**BarbiePhish** · 10-10-2005, 12:39 PM

Alright, here's a picture of my Jade. I guess she's a lacewing, she looks very similar to a picture that Kathy posted. Thanks so much for all the help!

P.S. Getting the picture an appropriate size may take me a few tries.

**BarbiePhish** · 10-10-2005, 03:25 PM

Fixed pic!

**wetheril** · 10-10-2005, 09:42 PM

BarbiePhish: sorry, your bird is not a lacewing, but she's very pretty! She's a spangled graywing yellow-faced skyblue.

Looks a lot like Kathy's Twitter!!

**kathy5** · 10-11-2005, 05:33 AM

yes she is very pretty indeed!

Skyblue spangle split to recessive pied.
a friend of mine has one just like her

**BarbiePhish** · 10-11-2005, 03:42 PM

So now that we've officiated her being a spangle, what is pied? I hear that being in different birds, and I haven't a clue what that is *haha*

P.S. When I posted the pic, I meant to say 'I guess she's a spangle.' *silly me*

**Rainbow** · 10-18-2005, 11:16 PM

Ooohhh pieds...I love them.

I don't see your bird as being pied. She is beautiful, and I would call her a type 2 yellowface skyblue spangle.

There are several types of pieds, but they boil down to being dominant or recessive. This is a very simplified description.

A dominant pied will ideally have a band of color running across the chest that is the same color as the head, and a patch of feathers on the back of the head that is missing the normal barring. Dominant pieds can also have no pied markings other than the head patch. If the bird has that head patch, s/he is definitely pied.
A recessive pied will normally have very little body color, and will be mostly whatever color the head is. The beak and feet are orange, and the male will retain a pink cere, it never changes to blue. But a recessive pied will not have a visible iris ring when mature, whereas a dominant pied will. Sometimes a dominant pied will be marked like a recessive pied (these are doublefactor dominant pieds), so you cannot tell just by looking at how the color is splashed on the bird. You need to know whether the bird has a visible iris ring or not to differentiate between those two types. Pieds can also carry other mutations besides their "piedness" such as opaline, cinnamon, clearwing, whitewing, etc. It is also common for pieds to be missing throat spots. Some never get any, and I have one that has three spots on one side and none on the other.

I have dominant pieds - here are a few:

dominant pied fairly normal markings

dominant pied only head patch markings

doublefactor dominant pied (looks like a recessive pied but is not)

front views of some pieds

Hopefully that helps you with pieds.