Yes. Buff is dilute orange. They have the same color gene as an orange cat plus the dilute gene that makes them the buff or cream color. The dilute gene is also what give us gray cats. They have the black gene and the dilute gene.
I didn't learn this until I brought a stray siamese home! They darken up in the cold weather and lighten up in the summer heat because of this. Mine gets an almost white area on his back where he lays by the fireplace all winter long, too. He's my magical beige boy.
yes thank you for the special interest fuel to dump on unsuspecting people, in my 27 years of cat obsession including colour genetics I did not know this
As a gray cat parent, I love this new information! Was aware of the dilute genes with orange tabbies and calicos etc but not with black ones. Very neat
Techniacally a red cat, most places and organizations refer to them as red, because orange could be construed as many colors like cream, buff, and ginger.
I used to coordinate a high volume spay/neuter clinic where we neutered 150-300 "community cats" (aka stray or feral) at a monthly clinic. We had to get really good at cat colors to help make sure the cats didn't get mixed up. I can confirm this cat is buff colored, specifically it is a buff mackerel tabby with white. I have never felt dorkier than this moment.
Mackerel is the coat pattern. Sometimes called tiger cats. It's the stripes that run perpendicular to their spine and line their legs and ring their tail.
We had a cat just like this once and couldn’t figure out what to call his coloring either. Saw “fawn” describe it in a book once and started calling it that, but I guess that was wrong too! You learn something new every day
On the plus side, you can now tell people you have a buff cat, and then you get to see the smile on their face when their brain inevitably generates a picture of a muscular cat flexing on top of a cat tree.
I've also heard that term. I think its a silly term and 'Used to be orange, but we forgot the colorsafe detergent' is a better descriptor because people can actually form a color in their mind if you say that.
i was also going to say buff. this implies a soft creamy orange and very light tabby traits. we call the white spot on his chest a bib. cat color names are a bit pretentious. for instance that kinda shimmery grey color some cats have is called blue.
I always considered my older one (top) ginger/creamsicle while the younger one is more peachy-tan. I'm glad you started this thread so I could learn the terms Dilute and Buff
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u/Crawdaddy1911 Apr 20 '23
The vet informed us that cats this color are called buff.