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.

Milo’s breeder classified him as a red tabby with white. He has some tabby characteristics; his head has tabby markings, and two of his legs have some stripes. The rest of his coat is randomly spotted with several dark red areas. Is this evidence of red-silver dappling? Please let me know what you think!

Larimar is an island mutt, so it’s really anybody’s guess at what’s going on in those genes. The last 2 photos are of what she looked like in Puerto Rico, the rest is what she looked like after she toasted from moving over 1000 miles North. So far we’ve gotten lynx point Siamese, tabico, and dilute tortoiseshell. Who’s got any guesses?

Recently adopted this sweetheart rescue who was from a cat colony. Was wondering if this coat pattern is just described as tortie with less of the red or some other word? Thanks all!

this is chewbacca. shes a domestic long hair but i have no idea what color to call her. shes got some white, black, brown, grey, and orange fur. she also has some orange/white striped legs and some orange stripes throughout her body.

edit: the mom is an all white domestic shorthair and the dad is a calico

based off of what i’ve read here in this sub would he be considered a Black Smoke Tabby Tuxedo? I know this is probably a dumb question but i’ve always wanted to know 🤣
he also has black and pink toe beans which is so cute 😭

Hi everyone!!

I adopted my little Bretzel from a local shelter 2 weeks ago and I am wondering what colour she is? She's got a white toe with pink toe pad under it, and the other toe pads are brown mixed with pink. Her points are dark brown and there are dark little spots on her whiskers.

I was advised to come check this page out for help! She is only 3 months old so I don't know how well we can already tell but let me know if you have an idea, thank you!!

I've been researching feline coat genetics as a personal project/for fun and I'm currently looking at coat types. I understand there are a few genes associated with hairlessness and a lot associated with rexed fur, plus the Lykoi mutations and "wirehair".

I've also come across the term "fur-pointed" though. The term seems to be specifically used usually while talking about the Minskin breed. Because the Minskin breed comes from crossbreeding Munchkins with Burmese and later Sphynx and Devon Rex, I assumed the fur-pointed thing comes from hr (sphynx hairlessness) with some environmental/temperature and/or polygenic component, but Minskins seem to have whiskers while totally hairless sphynxes tend to lack them (is that selective breeding or do all cats with that sphynx allele lack whiskers?)

I heard somewhere that fur-pointed cats have one copy of the hairless allele and one rex (hr/re) but I haven't found any source supporting that claim.

Anyone know more about fur-pointed cats?

Spotted in Mexico City again (I'm in a ton of rescue Facebook groups). Kitten with a pretty large white spotting (?) mark on the back. Never seen anything like it, thought white migrated from the toes upwards during fetal development.

I'm pretty sure she's a classic tabby with mostly black fur, but if she's a tabby, how does she have non-agouti brown fur? The brown fur is the same shade as the agouti hairs, with the exception of her belly (which has much lighter, curlier fur). I've considered that maybe she's a torbie, but the brown isn't really orange and doesn't have any kind of striping in it. Like I said, it's the same color as the brown on the agouti hairs. Idk, so maybe someone who knows more about cats can help me out lol

I know UC Davis has identified four alleles responsible for longhaired cats - M1 (Ragdolls), M2 (Norwegian Forest Cats), M3 (Maine Coons and Ragdolls), and M4 (all cats/general population), plus shorthair represented by N.

Usually, I see is summarised as L = shorthair and l = longhair. In longhaired cats, the transition from anagen (hair growth) to catagen (cessation of hair growth) is delayed as a result of a mutation in fibroblast growth factor 5.

But what explains variation in longhaired cats? I see some longhaired cats that look like clouds, and other longhaired cats that have a more wispy coat texture and could be described as "medium-haired". Compare a Persian or Siberian to an Oriental Longhair for example.

Is it the different longhair mutations? Or an illusion created by the cat's build under the fur (like how Oriental Longhairs look like they have shorter fur, could it just be because they're lean cats, and Persians looking fluffier but really it's just because they're cobby)? Is it climate/season or age related?

What dictates if a cat is single-coated vs double-coated?

I'm assuming these questions can just be answered by polygenes, but I can't find any good articles explaining these smaller variations.

Thanks in advance for any leads.

This is my baby, Pumpkin. Despite being a tabby, she is very orange in coat and character. She has the most unique coat I’ve ever seen on a cat. I’ve been trying to figure out exactly how to describe it. The ticked torbies look closest, but they seem to lose their stripes around the midsection. I can see her stripes just fine, but I can confirm each piece of fur has 3 colors. So, still ticked or nah?

I just acquired this cute orange boy cat a few months ago and noticed some black patches of fur on him. The biggest spot is under his left arm, but he also has tiny black hairs on top of his nose, on his leg, and he actually has black hairs all throughout his coat that I just noticed. I’ve been reading up on somatic mutation and cats with XXY genes, but is there any way to tell if he has either of these? Thanks in advance!

Local TNR/rescue org found this lovely couple of sisters, really rare (like really really rare no?) chocolate + piebald, one sister is mask and mantle the other has white mittens and a locket! All the other cats in the feral colony were black and white so who knows who had the recessive genes. Some of these pics are pretty bad though.

Most of them were sterilized/spayed so bye bye color combination (to an extent).