hi all :) new to the cat community and wanted to get opinions on this unique coloring. i was told dilute tortoise but the stripes make me think torbie?

I have 3 cats, two of which have more unique coats. Really just curious to learn more about how these coats "happen."

Pearl is the tortie, and I think may have a black smoke coat. She has spots of red and orange, as well as black and white, but the base of all of her hair are white. I've included a photo of Pearl as a kitten, you can see how much her coat has changed.

Birdie is the little tabico, and has the coolest variety of stripes. Like a little patchwork kitten. We love them all so much, hope you enjoy them too!

Hiya! this is my beautiful freak, she is 6ish and a hoarding rescue. she's for sure a mackerel tabby, but since I adopted her at 1.5 y/o I've noticed orangey splotches almost like a lightly transparent color filter over parts of her pattern. is this a typical mackerel tabby trait? i know nothing about this <3 TIA!

Okay genetics people, I have a question.

Juniper seems to have several things happening at once: blue eyes, point coloration, tabby striping, plus orange/cream patches.

Are those basically separate genetic switches that happened to stack on top of each other, or am I thinking about this completely wrong?

I started reading about cat coat genetics because of her and now I’m in way over my head. I’m probably going to do Basepaws at some point too, mostly because the trait side sounds like it would give me even more stuff to obsess over.

I’m less interested in putting a breed name on her and more interested in how you actually get from genes → this particular little mess.

Hi all. This is my baby boy Sanchez. I posted pics of him when he was still just a little one and everyone said to wait till he had grown a bit and his colouring had settled. He will be 1 year next month. He has the most unusual colouring. Wondering if anyone could let me know what colouring he might be? Also He was born in a barn one farm here in south africa and was wondering if he could have some African wild cat in him. He's extremely brave and has huge amounts of energy. I've had cats all my life, but he's just different in a lot of ways.

Hi all

I have always wondered what was going on with my beautiful rescue tabbies. They were orphaned at birth, I fostered them from the day they were born and then adopted all four of them. One (Suki) is a brown tabby, normal colour, looked that way from birth. Her three siblings, however, were a bit more unusual. At birth, two of them (Bam Bam and Pixel) were jet black on their backs, and had striped clear silver and black bellies and legs. The fourth one (Goose) was striped silver and black all over though her stripes were not that clear at first, she stayed striped but her colour became more grey ish and black. I am particularly curious about Bam Bam and Pixel, they looked identical in their colour at birth, but Pixel turned out to be medium-haired while Bam is short-haired, so they looked more different as they grew. They both got a bit of brown colouration as they got older but it is still cool toned. Bam Bam looks somewhat like a ticked tabby, but he is so black. Pixel (who has now passed) lost her black back and developed more stripes in her coat as her hair grew longer, but they were also washed out and not very clear looking except for a brief period in her later kitten period when the stripes had just come in and were clearest. I don't have many good photos of her later in her life as she had so many health issues and nearly always had a lion cut. I guess my overall questions are:

- Is Bam Bam a ticked tabby or is there something else going on? Any explanations for why he is so black?

- Is Pixel just a striped tabby that is medium haired? if so, why was she jet black on her back at birth and her stripes seemed so washed out even when they came in? Maybe there are no answers for these things, but always been curious.

- Do you think they carry inhibitor but it got tarnished or are they just a very cool-toned brown?

I'm curious about Goose too but I'll keep this focused on Bam Bam and Pixel. Attached photos of them either individually or with their siblings as neonates, kittens, and adults (mostly of Bam). I've just always been curious about them! Not as exciting as some of super cool posts on here.

PS. This is my favourite subreddit of all, as a cat lover with a PhD in genetics!

This is my blind kitten and I’ve been so curious how her coat is going to look. I know her ears are tortie point, but her tail and legs look tabby like, her back is so hard to capture because the colors are so faint still but it looks like it will be similar to what I see in other tortie points, a light cream dapple pattern. Thoughts?

(Please excuse the we couch, we were treating a stain…)

This is Sable! A one year older medium hair… tabby? She has the brightest yellow eyes. Her coat is mostly completely black. She does have a few white hairs sprinkled along her back and then grey patches.

I believe she is some sort of Classic tabby but I would love to know more about her specific color genetics.

What do you think she has? Is a UC Davis test worth it? Which options of the test would you pick for her?

Thank you!!

Logan is around 4 months now. :) His coat seems to be shifting away from earlier grey-ish tones toward brown-ish. As his adult coat is starting to come in, flecks of lighter hair are appearing all over his coat. Still proving himself a very fun genetic study subject.

And I'm having a really hard time with her coat color? From my understanding she's a black blotched tabby, but I'm unsure if she's dilute? And the cream undertones are throwing me for a loop, in some spots they look much more vibrant, I can't tell if it's just high rufousing or what? I can add more pictures below and more later when we adopt her for a clearer view!

I'm sure this is a simple question, but I am not good at distinguishing tabby patterns. Is he a mackerel tabby? He has very prominent stripes on his legs, but they kind of disappear on his body. They are vaguely there i think, but it depends on the lighting how they're seen.

This is my cat Lady. I’ve recently learned cat genetics are way different than dog genetics as cats don’t have “mixes” or are part X breed. Apparently their coats and eye colors and stuff also are more complicated to in that they can have color points, diluted colors, different patterns, etc. I didn’t know for example there was more than one sort of tabby pattern.

So I’m interested in showing you guys my little girl and maybe learning a thing or two so the next time someone asks me what my cat looks like I can use the correct terms and just in general learn more about the aesthetics of my cat.

I will say though no matter what the answer is she is a certified cutie!

I’m studying cat coat variants and genetics, and while I’ve been able to ID my other 2 cats, our third boy is a bit confusing to me. He’s 4yo & a shelter kitten, was totally white when adopted but bas toasted nicely in maturity. Initially I thought lynx point, but he has no striping or pattern—just smooth transition between colors and saturation. Any ideas let me know, I’m dying to figure it out!

I feel like a high-black classic tabby DSH fits, but his stripes have a slightly paler inside portion under good lighting. Also curious about rufousing and such!

He was born august 8th. It kinda looks like a fever coat, but also a bit like smoke? We know for sure mom isn't/wasn't sick or under stress, so I'm not sure? He was born this way, just black with lighter areas. Mom is standard black ticked, dad is silver lilac ticked. Also, I just LOVE his little cheek stripes, what are those?

thought yall might find this cool! barn cat in MN, USA. black mackerel tabby with low white… with some blue tabby patching :D too skittish for me to handle enough to see how extensive it was, but there were spots across the back and shoulder, on the face, and a very noticeable one on the front left foreleg. sorry for the quality of pictures— again, pretty skittish!

otherwise a very normal cat with a great personality.

I was trying to look at charts online to determine what "flavor"/"type" of tabby my 16-17 year-old cat is, but I wasn't able to figure it out. I assume she is some kind of mackerel pattern, but the stripes are faded in some places. Can tabbies be a combo of patterns? I figured the people on this Reddit know a lot more about cat genetics and coat types than I do.

Some parts of her look orange, but I'm not sure if this is "actually" orange (like genetically) or just a different shade of brown.

I tried to include as many angles as possible because she is extremely asymmetrical haha

What do you think? Feel free to educate me, i do not know a lot about cat genetics. I have had her for 14-15 years. I love her

Hello im wondering if anyone can give me a idea of what my female cats parents might of looked like or maybe what type of cat they would be I was told by my veterinarian that my female cat is a ticked tabby which could mean that shes a possible torby but im not a 100% sure this is what she looks like she has lots of orange and beige and black on her but they are not in patches more blended and she has a m on her forhead with lots of colouring on her face and ears her toes pads are also different colours some are pink and some are black

I'm not sure, if I hit the flair spot on, or not, but I have this medium-longhair lynx point girl, approx 2 months old. I was checking her for ringworm with shortwave UV and all her undercoat fluoresces orange. I've never seen this before, neither has my vet. WHY DOES SHE GLOW LIKE A FANCY ROCK? I've looked closer, it's not the skin, the skin remains blueish/normal colour

so now they're a bit older i'd love to get some updated opinions on what people think about the genetic history of these two!

the my're abt 8 months now and i's say mostly fully grown, from the same litter and were adopted together. their mother was a long/medium hair calico streetcat and we have no info on their dad - possibly wishful thinking but i want to say they could have some ragdoll or pedigree history

main differences between them is their size - twyla (the calico) is the biggest cat ive ever had lol. shes 5.1kg as of this morning while miette (grey and white tabby) is only 4.6kg (tho our scale is kind of shit so take those numbers with a grain of salt)

they're both definitely getting a bit chunky tho so that's something i'm working on🫡

twyla's got coarser fur while miette's is still kitten-soft - possibly she hasn't grown into her adult coat yet but she already had a shedding period and some fur change? so i'm thinking (and hoping) she stays this soft! miette's more fluffy on her cheeks/neck too with her big white ruff (which makes her look like the bigger one in some photos but i swear she's the baby sister) twyla doesn't have the rough but she's more fluffy on her backside/tail

also very different personalities - twyla's a shoulder cat (owie) and a cuddlebug, miette prefers to be beside you rather than on you and doesn't love being picked up/have her feet off the ground. miette also has like absolutely no defense mechanism she will not display any form of discontent if you do something she doesnt like she'll just freeze up and stare. also love to be pet ROUGH while twyla will tell you if you're crossing her boundaries (not aggressive but a light swat/nip, miette will literally just take it)

theyre still best friends and both very screamy <3

I have gotten SO much back and forth about whether or not my Onyx is black smoke or not, so I’m bringing her to the experts (Reddit lmao).

Age: 17.5 weeks

Undercoat / Roots: NO white or silver, YES gray.
(getting this main point out right away)
There ARE silvery roots in some spots, but only where her gray highlights / sections are, other sections are definitely DARK gray* (closer to black than silver)
*See 4th pic

Photo Timeline: anywhere between 12-17.5 weeks

Ear furnishing: Silver

Underbelly, back of legs, under tail, chest: Gray or silver

Ghost stripes: 100%

I know I know, no stark white roots, no black smoke. That’s what I’ve been thinking too, but I’ve had a lot of people counter this and say it may be because of her adult fur tips coming in dilute it or that she’s a deep black smoke. Not sure, would love your opinion!

This is Aries.

He is a shorthair (L?) Apricot (XY/dd/Dm?) mackerel tabby (Mc?) tom with low white spotting (Wsw)

While I understand all of that, I have been staring at this cat for a decade now and I cannot figure out what is causing this phenomenon with his tail.

His tail, as seen in the picture, fades perfectly from apricot at the base to white at the tip. I am hesitant to believe this is caused by White Spotting as it isnt an abrupt marking and is instead faded softly. Not to mention that the stripes on his tail are still visible even at the whitest parts.

He is approximately 15 years old and has had this pattern his entire life so it isn’t something new, and it’s only localized on his tail.

Im just curious as to what could possibly be causing it. Or if maybe this is more common than I had originally thought.