They have a dominant gene that causes hyperpigmentation (fibromelanosis), making the chicken mostly black, including feathers, beak, and internal organs.
•Rank: Breed
•Place of origin: Indonesia
THE AYAM CEMANI chicken may be the most deeply pigmented creature on earth. Not only are the bird’s feathers, beak, comb, tongue, and toes a striking, blue-ish black, but so are its bones.
Even the chicken’s meat looks like it has been marinated in squid ink.
Interestingly, the cemani, which is found in Indonesia, is just the most extreme example of what scientists call dermal hyperpigmentation. Another breed, known as the silkie because of its soft, hair-like feathers, also sports hyperpigmented skin and tissues, as do the black H’Mong chickens of Vietnam and the svarthöna of Sweden.
Scientists call the condition fibromelanosis.
“We have evidence that it is a complex rearrangement in the genome,” says Leif Andersson, a geneticist at Uppsala University in Sweden who studies the genetics of domestic animals.
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