Himalayan rabbits having black fur where their skin is cold and white fur where it's warm is a useful and obvious example of this.

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duskwuff 5 days ago | parent | next [-]

That's a separate effect, known as acromelanism, or "point coloration". It's the result of an enzyme which is inactivated by higher temperatures, not a genetic change - the extent of pointing can change over an animal's lifetime, and the specific pattern isn't inherited. (For instance, if you somehow convinced a cat with color pointing to wear a sweater, its fur would stay light under that sweater, but any offspring it had would not inherit that pattern.)

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malfist 5 days ago | parent [-]

A better example might be how some animals (turtles in particular) have their sex defined by their egg temperature

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duskwuff 5 days ago | parent [-]

That isn't a genetic change either, though. Those species of turtle either lack the typical sex-determining chromosomes entirely, or have sex-determining chromosomes which can be inactivated during development. The genotype doesn't change as a result of what temperature the egg is incubated at; its expression does.

Further reading: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2021/07/210726102148.h...

	▲	malfist 5 days ago \| parent [-]
		That's exactly the point. Gene expression can be modified by the environment

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Earw0rm 5 days ago | parent | prev [-]

Are the imprinted patterns then inherited, though?

	▲	knicholes 5 days ago \| parent [-]
		No. Sounds like I was wrong earlier.