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Olive Cockatiels
When people first hear of the Olive Cockatiel an instant image comes to mind of an olive-green coloured bird. Unfortunately in most cases this is not what what breeders find and they are often very disillusioned by the true appearance of this mutation. Emerald is another term used for this mutation and as is the same as with using the term Olive, it is very misleading. A more correct term that describes this mutation more accurately is 'Suffused'.
Suffused Mutation
Cockatiels have the ability to produce only psittacin (yellow and orange) pigments and melanin pigments. They can not produce the structural colours required to give visual or green colouration. Because of this it is impossible for cockatiels to be Olive in colour. The effect that is in fact seen in the Australian Olive mutation is due to a dilute gene that reduces the amount of melanin deposited in the feathers. This reduction in melanin is the greatest of all the dilute mutations and as a result allows the normally hidden yellow pigments to become more visible. This suffusion of grey melanin pigments and yellow psittacin pigments gives a combined visual appearance of an olive cockatiel.
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