We focus on the Lanping black-boned sheep (LPBB) because it is the only mammal that resembles the Chinese silky fowl in the world. LPBB is characterized by black pigmentation in its plasma colorimetry and had its internal organs compared to the reddish color in Lanping normal sheep. Although the literature is abundant in genetic case studies, the processes of pigmentation remain obscure. We thus investigate the association between the PDGFRL gene polymorphism of LPBB and melanin deposition.

Lanping black-boned sheep is a novel and rare sheep breed discovered in the 1950s in China and has the same hyperpigmentation trait as silk fowl. Lanping black-bones sheep has same morphology with Lanping native sheep such as coat color, and horns and tail shape, so it's interesting to investigate the genetic relationship of the two breeds and the genetic origin of Lanping black-boned sheep. Lanping black-boned sheep and Lanping native sheep have great genetic similarity.

Compared with worldwide normal sheep with reddish muscle, the Nanping black-boned sheep is the only mammal similar to silky fowl with black muscles. The effects of mutations of the gene for tyrosinase-related protein 1 (TYRP1) on the black muscles and coat color in Nanping black-boned sheep were investigated.