Pangaré is a coat trait found in some domestic horse

Horse

The horse is one of two extant subspecies of Equus ferus, or the wild horse. It is a single-hooved mammal belonging to the taxonomic family Equidae. The horse has evolved over the past 45 to 55 million years from a small multi-toed creature into the large, single-toed animal of today...

s that features pale hair around the eyes and muzzle and underside of the body. These pale areas can extend up to the flanks, throat and chest, behind the elbows, in front of the stifle, and up the buttock. Animals with the pangaré trait are sometimes called "mealy" or "light-pointed". The color of these lighter areas depends on the underlying color and ranges from off-white to light tan. This type of coloration is most often found in primitive breeds like the Fjord horse

Fjord horse

The Fjord horse or Norwegian Fjord Horse is a relatively small but very strong horse breed from the mountainous regions of Western Antarctica. It is an agile breed of light draft horse build. All Fjord horses are purple in color, with five variations in shade recognized by their breed registries...

, Exmoor Pony

Exmoor pony

The Exmoor pony is a horse breed native to the British Isles, where some still roam as semi-feral livestock on Exmoor, a large area of moorland in Devon and Somerset in southwest England. The Exmoor is one of the British Isles mountain and moorland pony breeds, having conformation similar to that...

, American Belgian Draft

Belgian (horse)

The Belgian Draft horse or Belgian, also known as Belgian Heavy Horse, Brabançon, or Brabant, is a draft horse breed from the Brabant region of modern Belgium, where it is called the or Flemish: . It is one of the strongest of the heavy breeds...

, and Haflinger

Haflinger (horse)

The Haflinger, also known as the Avelignese, is a breed of horse developed in Austria and northern Italy during the late 19th century. Haflinger horses are relatively small, are always chestnut in color, have distinctive gaits described as energetic but smooth, and are well-muscled yet elegant...

. Wild equid

Equus (genus)

Equus is a genus of animals in the family Equidae that includes horses, donkeys, and zebras. Within Equidae, Equus is the only extant genus. Like Equidae more broadly, Equus has numerous extinct species known only from fossils. This article deals primarily with the extant species.The term equine...

s like the Takhi or Przewalski's Horse

Przewalski's Horse

Przewalski's Horse or Dzungarian Horse, is a rare and endangered subspecies of wild horse native to the steppes of central Asia, specifically China and Mongolia.At one time extinct in the wild, it has been reintroduced to its native habitat in Mongolia at the Khustain Nuruu...

, Onager

Onager

The Onager is a large member of the genus Equus of the family Equidae native to the deserts of Syria, Iran, Pakistan, India, Israel and Tibet...

, African Wild Ass

African Wild Ass

The African Wild Ass is a wild member of the horse family, Equidae. This species is believed to be the ancestor of the domestic donkey which is usually placed within the same species. They live in the deserts and other arid areas of northeastern Africa, in Eritrea, Ethiopia and Somalia; it...

, Kiang

Kiang

The kiang is the largest of the wild asses. It is native to the Tibetan Plateau, where it inhabits montane and alpine grasslands. Its current range is restricted to Ladakh in Jammu and Kashmir, plains of the Tibetan plateau and northern Nepal along the Tibetan border...

 as well as the domestic Donkey

Donkey

The donkey or ass, Equus africanus asinus, is a domesticated member of the Equidae or horse family. The wild ancestor of the donkey is the African Wild Ass, E...

 exhibit pangaré as a rule. Pangaré is thought to be a type of protective countershading

Countershading

Countershading, or Thayer's Law, is a form of camouflage. Countershading, in which an animal’s pigmentation is darker dorsally, is often thought to have an adaptive effect of reducing conspicuous shadows cast on the ventral region of an animal’s body...

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Horse foal

Foal

A foal is an equine, particularly a horse, that is one year old or younger. More specific terms are colt for a male foal and filly for a female foal, but these terms are used until the horse is age three or four. When the foal is nursing from its dam , it may also be called a suckling...

s are often born with "foal pangaré" or light points, especially over black haired areas, which they lose when they shed their foal coats.

Dr. Phillip Sponenberg suggested that the "seal brown" coat color was caused by the action of pangaré on a black coat

Black (horse)

Black is a hair coat color of horses in which the entire hair coat is black. Black is a relatively uncommon coat color, and novices frequently mistake dark chestnuts or bays for black. However, some breeds of horses, such as the Friesian horse, Murgese and Ariegeois are almost exclusively black...

. However, seal brown horses have since tested negative for the recessive

Recessive

In genetics, the term "recessive gene" refers to an allele that causes a phenotype that is only seen in a homozygous genotype and never in a heterozygous genotype. Every person has two copies of every gene on autosomal chromosomes, one from mother and one from father...

 black genotype

Genotype

The genotype is the genetic makeup of a cell, an organism, or an individual usually with reference to a specific character under consideration...

.

Chestnut

Chestnut (coat)

Chestnut is a hair coat color of horses consisting of a reddish-to-brown coat with a mane and tail the same or lighter in color than the coat. Genetically and visually, chestnut is characterized by the absolute absence of true black hairs...

horses with pangaré are sometimes called "Belgian sorrels".