Inheritance of the "rat-tail" syndrome

Abstract

A form of congenital hypotrichosis, commonly known as rat-tail, is characterized by the colored hair anywhere on the body being short, curly, malformed, and sometimes sparse and an abnormal tail switch. The "rat-tail" syndrome is controlled by interaction between two loci. Cattle that express this syndrome must have at least one gene for black color and be heterozygous at the other locus involved.