This sweet little kitty is Cloud. She is about 3 months old.

I have a theory about Cloud, and I would like to know if there is any potential credence to this theory.

Back in the early ‘00s, I had a cat named Gizmo. He was a Siamese/Ragdoll mix. The people we got him from told us that they would attend cat shows and buy any cats breeders were selling due to poor show performance, hence the purebred parents of Gizmo.

We lived in the country. Our cats were working cats. Unfortunately, Gizmo disappeared before he as neutered. I was just a kid and was devastated. We always assumed that he went off to the neighboring farm to find a female in heat. Especially because we would see these beautiful cream colored, blue-eyed kittens running around our neighbor’s farm.

Cut to Cloud. She is from that neighboring farm. I drove to my hometown and picked this girl up because she reminds me of a cat I once lost, and I have this crazy theory that she is a descendent of my Gizmo. I even had her DNA tested.

I have read that the breed ancestry part is mostly bunk, but that the traits are accurate. So - my question is am I crazy or is there a chance?

I'm wondering how the patterns I see came about. One local vet said the external genitalia looked female, but found scars where testicles were removed when he examined the cat under sedation.

The white blaze on his back looks like the white hairs are slightly longer than the other body hair.

I once had a pure bred Burmese who was solid chocolate brown, but I find brown cats rather uncommon. Can someone explain the genetics behind this coloration? Is it as rare as it seems? He was such a beautiful boy.

So I've had this little one for officially a month now (adopted August 1st, it's now Aug 31st) and shes 3 months and 11 days old, I don't know much about coat colors beyond the most obvious names like Calico, tortoiseshell, tabby, tuxedo and all that.

And I figure you probably have to wait until cats adult coat fully comes in instead of their kitten coat to be able to truly tell, but It'd still be interesting to know what ya'll figure Bonnie is or might be.

His adoption paperwork has him as seal point DSH on his desex vet paperwork and chocolate point DSH on his earlier vet visit, which is correct?

My tonk was born pure white and I previously thought that was how it was with any point cat.

This little fellow was born with white and light chocolate marble tabby coat then started developing points.
I am curious if that is just how tabbies with the partial albino gene are? Like they will still have mackerel or marble tabby coat base
or if he is just an adorable lil anomaly

She often gets confused for a tuxedo, but she’s got an interesting swirly pattern, mixed beans, and fun clown pants. People always ask if she is some fancy cat breed, but she’s just a DLH who was a suggested $15 donation from a shelter in rural Minnesota.

I have a new color point DSH girlie at home and I’d love to understand the genetics of her appearance a little better.

I’m also curious how to describe her color pattern, is she just tortie point? She’s a foster fail, I was initially caring for her while she was nursing a litter of beautiful color point kittens - 1 long hair, 1 medium, and 1 short. Would appreciate whatever insights you folks can provide!

I have a hard time identifying silver in cats and this is tripping me up.

Barn cat being a barn cat, Callie had her babies and hid them for a while, but here they are! Only 2 but I’d say that’s a good thing, we don’t need a ton of cats on the farm.

The original post was to figure out if Callie (the mom) is a tabby-calico or a black-calico. I think we learned nothing.

I’m leaning more towards her being a tabby-calico because I think I see brown/copper hairs on her forehead and tail.

(Pic 4 is the likely dad of the kittens)

It’s hard to get a picture of up close because the blue part is very small but it’s there. We got her from the shelter recently and they said she was a siamese but she’s obviously mixed. I think she’s a lynx point Siamese or someone else suggested she might be a pale tabby.
Thanks!

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!