Fascinated with Cat Colors

Now that we have Tiny Kitty, I am fascinated with cat colors.

I wrote on the form at the vet's office that she is a tabby.  The vet marked that out and said she is a calico.

How many colors can a cat be?

Our kitten is a white kitty wearing a gray-striped hooded coat with red strip britches, white socks, and mittens.

How would you describe your cat? Want to show off with pictures?

This cat from Pinterest looks a lot like ours except Tiny Kitty has more gray on the front paws and the red britches on the rear legs:


source

Here's our dilute calico, she's a spicy kitty in gray, lilac, creams, and white.

Denise Kersting wrote:Here's our dilute calico, she's a spicy kitty in gray, lilac, creams, and white.

"Dilute calico" is a term I had not seen.  I had to look that term up.

I like this description "spicy kitty in gray, lilac, creams, and white."  Pretty colors and a pretty kitty.

Lilac was a new color for today.

I read that our kitty is a Caliby, a calico with tabby.

Something I had learned as a kid that was lost with age was that all calico cats are female.  When I was describing the cat's colors to the vet when asked if the kitten was male or female, the vet reminded me that the cat had to be female.

I'd never heard dilute calico, before. This color combination, in my neck of the woods, has always been referred to as tortoise shell. I've had many of them (a very sweet, very pregnant mama adopted us, a couple days before bursting with 8 of them, then, as soon as they were weaned, got pregnant again, before we could scrounge up the funds to get her spayed), but tend to prefer calico with generous bits of white - my favorite kitty color combo....

My kitty has what I think is called tortoiseshell on her ears.

Similar to the cat in the picture from Pinterest has a red spot on its right ear. My kitty's ears are splotchy with red.

I agree about the generous white.

Carla said, "but tend to prefer calico with generous bits of white - my favorite kitty color combo....

My cat calico from when I was a kid was like that.

One of my favorite cats, from my early adulthood was Bridget - a long-haired, beautifully marked calico, with a thick, white ruffle at her throat, an all-white tummy, and white paws, with lots of orange and black...

My boy is a pretty typical short haired "Tuxedo" black and white cat.    He's technically an indoor cat, but he's allowed to have visits to the yard with me and the dogs, as long as he comes in when called and doesn't abuse his privilege lol.   He likes to be wherever the dogs are.

A stray cat adopted my daughter once, and had a typical "turkish van" type color pattern;   all white expect for his tail and ears.   This is the only old photo of him I could find, but it was a really pretty coat color/type.

Turkish van that is an interesting pattern/color scheme.

Our daughter has had lots of cats over the years.

At one of her jobs, she fell in love with the office calico cat.  She had her for many years.  Then she had a black and white tuxedo cat who went missing and never turned up even though it had been microchipped.

For many years she had a blue kitty that she rescued due to its medical condition.

Next, she had two yellow tabbies named Waylan and Willy.

I know she still has a cat or two though I lost track of what she has.

What's interesting about cats is that their common tabby patterns are likely a reflection of the fact they were never fully domesticated.

When an animal is domesticated, it undergoes genetic changes where the neural crest never fully develops. A domesticated animal never reaches full adulthood in terms of its survival instincts. It has less instinctive fearfulness than its ancestors did. You can walk right up to a cow that's had little human interaction in its life - try that with a wild bison and it will either run or attack you.

The neural crest also controls development of coloration patterns on an animal. When domesticated animals have large patches of one color (think: cats, pitbulls, mixed breed dogs, cattle, pigs), this is a result of a neural crest that was never fully developed. They weren't specifically bred for those color patches, the patches happen because of domestication.

Some researchers bred wild Foxes for the tame behavior of a domestic animal and discovered that domestication caused them to lose their camouflage stripes and instead have solid blotches of different colors, even though this isn't what they were bred for.

A few dog breeds such as Huskies still retain the appearance of their wild ancestors but most do not.

Interestingly, cats are the only domesticated species where they still often retain the camo appearance of their wild ancestors. A tabby cat looks pretty much the same as a bobcat, just a bit smaller and slightly different ears. This is probably because cats were never fully domesticated. They must be raised around humans from birth to ever be tame household pets. Cats that are raised only by their mothers will turn back into wild animals, and can even fend for themselves as feral animals in some environments. They are an invasive species in Australia.

Cats are not, and have never been, a fully domesticated species. Our ancestors welcomed having cats around to deal with their rodent problems. They preferred cats that were such good mousers that they needed little or no food. Cats weren't just fluffy pets for purring in your lap, they had a job to do.

So perhaps that tabby cat you have, looks like a Bobcat because it actually is still a Bobcat to some extent. It isn't an animal that's been bred to full domestication, and it trusts you only because it was raised around humans from birth.

This raises a question - Are tabby cats less tame than other cats? I'm not sure anyone has ever researched this question. I know one of the best cats I ever had was a tabby cat, so I'm leaning towards no.

Sources:
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4096361/
https://evolution-outreach.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12052-018-0090-x
https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/rsos.160107

Thank you, Nathan those are some interesting cat facts.

Our cat is an outside cat who wants to spend all day in the house and all night outside.

She is very fearful of vehicles.  Funny that is where she lives.

One place we lived had a big red tabby who loved to chase squirrels.  I read that most if not all red tabby males are sterile.

And for a another fascinating angle,  check out info on "chimera" cats.   Seems to happen more in cats, or more obviously, than other animals maybe.  Makes some SUPER cool coloration combinations!

A while back I saved this thread about cat color genetics, which is long, fascinating, and just beyond the edge of my understanding:  https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1214252394223218688.html

Also, lots of cute cat pics!