This chicken has black bones, organs, and meat: Here’s why.
There are four breeds of chicken that have black insides, and all of them possess the same genetic mutation. A scientist explains how it came about.
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
