So what color are these cats, anyway?
Jan. 29th, 2010 04:05 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
jaunthieHaving had very few cats in my life, I knew enough to identify L and B as tabbies when we picked them out, but not much more than that. I knew they had white socks on the back and white mittens on the front, and that their bellies and throats were white, too, which was cute. And they were clearly tabbies, because they had stripes on their legs and the M on their foreheads. B kinda-sorta had stripes on his back, too, very faintly, but L's back and sides were a uniformish muddled dark grey that only showed the white color of her undercoat when she moved, with no other stripes visible. Both of them, in fact, were kind of dull-mud-colored over most of their bodies, and I figured that might have been one of the reasons they hadn't been adopted yet. Don't get me wrong; they were kittens, and therefore cute as anything, but their coats were kind of dull. I don't think it was a coincidence that the only two kittens adoped out of that litter of the six were the two solids-and-whites (one grey girl with white socks and one black boy with a white dickey). The four remaining were the muddy, dull-coated tabbies.
But we didn't care that L and B were kind of dull and muddy-looking, coat-wise. We were looking for a good companion for M, and that's exactly what we got, times two. The fact that their coats were on the plainish side, and in L's case, rather ratty-looking, just wasn't that important.
Silly me. Having only ever had two kitties in my life, I just assumed that their coats were going to remain the same. After all, J was a black kitty from the get-go, with a silvery-grey undercoat. That didn't change; the only real change in his coat from a 4-month-old to an old cat was that he rusted a bit with exposure to sunlight. And M has been black and white and cute all over from his days as a kitten. His spots and coloration never changed.
After all, the saying is that a leopard can't change his spots. The same is true for all kitties, right?
Well, as it turns out, no, this is not so. At least I've learned that little tabby kitten-coated kitties aren't necessarily going to have coats that really show what they're going to look like once they really start growing and their adult coats start coming in. Oh, don't get me wrong. They're tabby cats, and will remain so. But what kind of tabbies...ah, well, there's the question.
Did you know that there were many types of tabby coats? And that a tabby with white socks and belly isn't properly a "tabby" at all, but a "tabby and white"?
No, neither did I, not until I noticed changes emerging in B's coat and got curious about to what kind of markings those might be. I wasn't absolutely sure I was seeing what I thought I saw, but this picture at least proves I wasn't totally seeing things:
So I did some research. First of all, I learned that they are in fact tabby-and-whites, in the parlance of cat coats. Okay, fine. And tabby coats are the most common coat for cats; pretty much all cats carry the tabby gene, which is recessive but common. (Cat coat patterns are in fact controlled by a number of genes, which mix interestingly with the other genes for coloration, which is fascinating but another post.) Again, not really too surprising to me; tabby coats are good camoflauge. And they come in all sorts of colors, too; orange tabbies (your typical marmalade cat), brown tabbies (which look more black-and-grey to my eye, but what do I know?), silver, cream, patched tabbies, tortishell tabbies (torbies), even shaded and smoke tabbies, whatever that means. Well, all right; cats come in a lot of colors, so the fact that they come in a lot of colored stripes shouldn't be too shocking.
But I was surprised to find out that tabby coats come in a number of distinctly different patterns, all of which seem to mean rather a lot to a certain kind of cat-fancier person, and are rather interesting, genetically speaking, to a (frequently altogether different) certain type of geneticist-type person.
A handy-dandy chart, although the "flayed kitty drawing" aspect of it is a little disturbing when you think about it:
According to what I've read, the most common sort of tabby coat by a pretty wide margin is the Mackerel Tabby. Mackerel tabbies have vertical stripes pretty much all over (or at least all over where they are tabby, and not white), as you can see in the drawing above. Given that our two kittens were garden-variety mutt cats, I would have guessed that if they developed any kind of more visible striping at all, it would be regular old mackerel stripes. And frankly, I wasn't expecting them to be anything other than the largely muddy-coated kitties they were when we got them.
But no. Cats might not be able to change their spots, but wee little kittens are small canvases, and as they grow (and they're both growing like weeds, B especially) their coats are visibly changing. Their kitten-coats are different than their adult coats will be, too, both in texture and length, and maybe coloring to some degree. And in B's case, at least, it turns out that he's quite the recessive little beastie. The "classic tabby" is, despite the name, a recessive mutation, and unless B's coat changes even more as he grows and shows something else, that's what he is: a "classic tabby and white." The round spot on each side varies from classic to classic, but the bulls-eye or oyster or whatever you want to call it is the hallmark of the type. And he's got it, along with the very thick stripes/patterns.
Exhibit #1:
Exhibit #2:
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fisherbear and I have been trying to capture it in pictures the last day or two, rather than just taking more of the "aw that's cute!" variety, like this:
Check back here tonight and we might have some photographic evidence. Edited to add: Plenty of photos now added. You were warned.
More amusingly, particularly given his name, he has the One Ring branded on his left side, and what might be another One Ring on the other. Or maybe that will be the Lidless Eye when he's fully grown. We'll have to wait and see. But he didn't have any such bulls-eye mark when we gave him his name, I assure you. (Which just goes to show you that you should be very careful with names, right?) ;-)
L is some kind of tabby-and-white, but she's noticably smaller than B at this point, and it's hard to say exactly what that will turn out to be.
Maybe she's another classic tabby; maybe she's actually a patched tabby; maybe she's just going to stay muddy and muddled. But the patterns in her coat have become a lot more visible just in the last week, and if she continues on the course her brother took, we should know more shortly.
Edited to add: But in this shot, it sure looks like she might be another classic tabby and white, albeit with a much fancier and fainter bulls-eye:
I have to admit all the various information about tabby coats, types, and causes is rather fascinating to me. I like precision in language when I can get it, and I'm a bit of a science geek, too. All this is just semantics in the end, though. You can call them tabbies. It's not wrong; they are tabbies, and all the rest is just additional description for those who are inclined to want it. And of course what they really are is cute beyond words - almost aggressively so.
(Or maybe they're ninja cats practicing for later kills. Snuggling, or smothering? Only they know for sure.)
But I do have to admit a good deal of curiosity to see what their coats look like as adults. I'm fairly sure B is going to have a fairly striking coat, whatever it turns out to be. L will probably be more subtly patterned, but that's fine too. She's already quite the personality, and will undoubtedly enjoy the additional camoflauge.
And no matter how big they get, I expect I will always find them cute.
But we didn't care that L and B were kind of dull and muddy-looking, coat-wise. We were looking for a good companion for M, and that's exactly what we got, times two. The fact that their coats were on the plainish side, and in L's case, rather ratty-looking, just wasn't that important.
Silly me. Having only ever had two kitties in my life, I just assumed that their coats were going to remain the same. After all, J was a black kitty from the get-go, with a silvery-grey undercoat. That didn't change; the only real change in his coat from a 4-month-old to an old cat was that he rusted a bit with exposure to sunlight. And M has been black and white and cute all over from his days as a kitten. His spots and coloration never changed.
After all, the saying is that a leopard can't change his spots. The same is true for all kitties, right?
Well, as it turns out, no, this is not so. At least I've learned that little tabby kitten-coated kitties aren't necessarily going to have coats that really show what they're going to look like once they really start growing and their adult coats start coming in. Oh, don't get me wrong. They're tabby cats, and will remain so. But what kind of tabbies...ah, well, there's the question.
Did you know that there were many types of tabby coats? And that a tabby with white socks and belly isn't properly a "tabby" at all, but a "tabby and white"?
No, neither did I, not until I noticed changes emerging in B's coat and got curious about to what kind of markings those might be. I wasn't absolutely sure I was seeing what I thought I saw, but this picture at least proves I wasn't totally seeing things:
So I did some research. First of all, I learned that they are in fact tabby-and-whites, in the parlance of cat coats. Okay, fine. And tabby coats are the most common coat for cats; pretty much all cats carry the tabby gene, which is recessive but common. (Cat coat patterns are in fact controlled by a number of genes, which mix interestingly with the other genes for coloration, which is fascinating but another post.) Again, not really too surprising to me; tabby coats are good camoflauge. And they come in all sorts of colors, too; orange tabbies (your typical marmalade cat), brown tabbies (which look more black-and-grey to my eye, but what do I know?), silver, cream, patched tabbies, tortishell tabbies (torbies), even shaded and smoke tabbies, whatever that means. Well, all right; cats come in a lot of colors, so the fact that they come in a lot of colored stripes shouldn't be too shocking.
But I was surprised to find out that tabby coats come in a number of distinctly different patterns, all of which seem to mean rather a lot to a certain kind of cat-fancier person, and are rather interesting, genetically speaking, to a (frequently altogether different) certain type of geneticist-type person.
A handy-dandy chart, although the "flayed kitty drawing" aspect of it is a little disturbing when you think about it:
According to what I've read, the most common sort of tabby coat by a pretty wide margin is the Mackerel Tabby. Mackerel tabbies have vertical stripes pretty much all over (or at least all over where they are tabby, and not white), as you can see in the drawing above. Given that our two kittens were garden-variety mutt cats, I would have guessed that if they developed any kind of more visible striping at all, it would be regular old mackerel stripes. And frankly, I wasn't expecting them to be anything other than the largely muddy-coated kitties they were when we got them.
But no. Cats might not be able to change their spots, but wee little kittens are small canvases, and as they grow (and they're both growing like weeds, B especially) their coats are visibly changing. Their kitten-coats are different than their adult coats will be, too, both in texture and length, and maybe coloring to some degree. And in B's case, at least, it turns out that he's quite the recessive little beastie. The "classic tabby" is, despite the name, a recessive mutation, and unless B's coat changes even more as he grows and shows something else, that's what he is: a "classic tabby and white." The round spot on each side varies from classic to classic, but the bulls-eye or oyster or whatever you want to call it is the hallmark of the type. And he's got it, along with the very thick stripes/patterns.
Exhibit #1:
Exhibit #2:
fisherbear and I have been trying to capture it in pictures the last day or two, rather than just taking more of the "aw that's cute!" variety, like this: Check back here tonight and we might have some photographic evidence. Edited to add: Plenty of photos now added. You were warned.
More amusingly, particularly given his name, he has the One Ring branded on his left side, and what might be another One Ring on the other. Or maybe that will be the Lidless Eye when he's fully grown. We'll have to wait and see. But he didn't have any such bulls-eye mark when we gave him his name, I assure you. (Which just goes to show you that you should be very careful with names, right?) ;-)
L is some kind of tabby-and-white, but she's noticably smaller than B at this point, and it's hard to say exactly what that will turn out to be.
Maybe she's another classic tabby; maybe she's actually a patched tabby; maybe she's just going to stay muddy and muddled. But the patterns in her coat have become a lot more visible just in the last week, and if she continues on the course her brother took, we should know more shortly.
Edited to add: But in this shot, it sure looks like she might be another classic tabby and white, albeit with a much fancier and fainter bulls-eye:
I have to admit all the various information about tabby coats, types, and causes is rather fascinating to me. I like precision in language when I can get it, and I'm a bit of a science geek, too. All this is just semantics in the end, though. You can call them tabbies. It's not wrong; they are tabbies, and all the rest is just additional description for those who are inclined to want it. And of course what they really are is cute beyond words - almost aggressively so.
(Or maybe they're ninja cats practicing for later kills. Snuggling, or smothering? Only they know for sure.)
But I do have to admit a good deal of curiosity to see what their coats look like as adults. I'm fairly sure B is going to have a fairly striking coat, whatever it turns out to be. L will probably be more subtly patterned, but that's fine too. She's already quite the personality, and will undoubtedly enjoy the additional camoflauge.
And no matter how big they get, I expect I will always find them cute.
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no subject
Date: 2010-01-30 02:26 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-02-02 12:57 am (UTC)I've had those types of coats described as everything from black and white (white?) to olive (olive??!) to "tortoiseshell" (um.... no).
To add another piece of accurate, but utterly useless, information to your pile of interesting trivia about cat coat colors.... Flitter's official coat color is "Torbie" (tortoiseshell X tabby). Yes, that is an official classification, it's not just a made up word.
And you know about male calicos, right?
--J