The Skinny Pig is an almost hairless breed of Guinea pig. Skinny pigs typically have hair on their muzzles, feet, and legs, but are hairless over the remainder of their bodies. Some of them have a thin covering of fuzzy hair on their backs as well. A healthy Skinny has skin that is mostly smooth with some wrinkling around the legs and neck, the body is full with no appearance of spine or ribs. Skinnies can come in a variety of colours and patterns, such as Dutch, Tortoiseshell, Himalayan and many others. "Skinny" is not a synonym for all hairless guinea pigs, but refers to this specific breed.
The modern Skinny Pig breed originated with a cross between haired guinea pigs and a hairless lab strain. The hairless strain that it is most likely related to was a spontaneous genetic mutation that was first identified at Montreal's Institute Armand Frappier in 1978, in a colony of Hartley lab guinea pigs. In 1982 they were sent to Charles River Laboratories to be bred for laboratory use and are commonly used in dermatology studies today. They are an outbred strain that has an intact thymus and normal immune system.
Read more about Skinny Pig: Unique Traits, See Also
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