Genes Behind the Scenes

New genetics system for your pups in WolfQuest 3! This week, pups are being born across Yellowstone and beyond. Pups look fairly similar at birth but each one will grow a coat based on its parent’s genetic profile. So let’s take a look at the genetics that determine coat color. We’ve always had a simple genetics model in the game for puppy coats, but we’re making a much more accurate model now for WolfQuest 3. Genetics has always been a bit daunting for me, but fortunately my neighbor Nathan is a geneticist and, after he explained it to me three times, I think I finally got it. Most of the wolf’s genome has not yet been analyzed, but in 2009, scientists at UCLA discovered a gene variant that controls coat color. This got a lot of press at the time because they found that it comes from dogs, many thousands of years ago, meaning that wolves and dogs have cross-bred in the past. They named this gene variant the “k locus.” Every wolf has two copies of this gene which, using standard genetics terminology, is