AJs Best Friends Purebred Cat and Small Dog Rescue

The vast majority of cats in American homes and shelters fall into the domestic short, medium or long hair category. While they may not be rare purebreds, their individuality is expressed through both behavior and diverse coat markings. Let's look at how to more accurately describe your pet.

COAT CATEGORIES

Feline coat colors can be divided into two categories: deep colors and dilute colors. Descriptions, to be truly accurate, need to use these following recognized colors.

The Four Recognized Colors of Siamese

DEEP

DILUTE

1

Red (called orange)

Creme (buff or tan)

2
Black

Grey or Blue

3
Chocolate (Dk Brn)

Lavender

4
Cinnamon (Lt Brn)

Fawn

Deep colored hairs are jam-packed with pigment globules, whereas dilute hairs feature the clumps of pigment unevenly distributed throughout the hair shaft resulting in a less-intense color. White hair has no pigment at all.

Early on, cats of Western heritage (i.e. British Shorthair, Maine Coon) were only found in red or black and their dilutes. Eastern cats (i.e. Burmese and Siamese) were primarily chocolate and cinnamon and their dilutes. Through selective breeding, however, there are now many color varieties seen throughout the cat breeds.

SOLID COLOR CATS

Did you know all cats have the gene that produces tabby (stripes/spots) markings? However, in order for the tabby markings to be prominent, the cat must also have the gene for agouti, or light and dark banded hair, from one of its parents. Without it, the hair shafts will be a solid color. In bright light you can sometimes see the "ghost" tabby stripes on a solid color cat. Sometimes you can see the stripes on what you think is a solid black cat.

Have you ever seen a black kitten with a Siamese momcat? This is not as strange as you may think. Siamese cats carry a black gene. We have seen an odd assortment of coat colors with Siamese momcats. Sometimes we'll see a whole litter of black kittens, or maybe one or two bluegray kittens mixed in, or a black, with a bluegray and Siamese pointed kittens too.


Yakkity Yak, a Torti Point Siamese & her Blue baby	Momcat had 5 kittens, 2 Black, 1 Blue, 1 Blue Point & 1 Lilac Point.	Siamese siblings, a Blue, a Lynx Point & a Creme Point. The fluffy babyfur fell off a week after this photo was taken.	Another momcat with 2 Black, 1 Blue, 1 Blue Point & 1 Choc Point kittens.

TABBY PATTERNS

The name of the tabby cat comes from a type of silk found originally in a particular area of Baghdad in Iraq. Tabbies possess a coat that is a combination of agouti hairs and solid color hairs. There are four types of tabby patterning. All Tabby cats, in all colors and patterns, will have that distinctive "M" in the middle of the forehead.

Mackerel tabby is the coat most similar to our domestic cat's early relative, the African Wild Cat. These striped markings are called Mackerel because they resemble a fish's skeleton with a solid line along the spine and streaks radiating down the sides. Cats bearing this pattern are the ones most often called Tiger Cats.
Classic tabby bear blotches, or swirls, of solid colors on their sides. These cats are frequently referred to as Watermarked or Spiral tabbies.
Spotted tabby may have stripes on their face, legs, and tails but those on the body are broken up into many dots. This pattern is the hallmark of Ocicats and Egyptian Maus.
Ticked tabby has virtually no solid colored hairs, so it lacks spots or stripes. The Abyssinian is an example of the all-agouti-haired ticked tabby.

Mackerel Brown Tabby

Classic or Spiral Brown Tabby

Spotted Brown Tabby

Ticked Red Tabby

Mixed breed cats may have agouti-haired patches, but they are generally combined with other markings.

TABBY COAT COLORS:

A "brown tabby" has black stripes on a brownish or grayish ground color. The black stripes may be coal black, or a little bit brownish.

A "blue tabby" has gray stripes on a grayish or buff ground color. The gray stripes may be a dark slate gray, or a lighter blue-gray.

A "red tabby" has orange stripes on a cream ground color. The orange stripes may be dark reddish orange, or light "marmalade" orange.

A "cream tabby" has cream stripes on a pale cream ground color. These stripes look sand-colored or peach-colored rather than orange.

A "silver tabby" has black stripes on a white ground color. The roots of the hairs are white. You can also have a blue silver, cream silver, or red silver tabby (red silver is also known as "cameo tabby") depending on the color of the stripes. In all cases, silver tabbies have a pale ground color and white roots. To make sure, part the hairs and look at the roots.

PIEBALD / PARTICOLOR CATS

Piebald or Particolor cats are white and any other color. Such as...

Bicolor is the term used to describe a cat that is 1/3 - 2/3 white and usually has patches of color on its head and torso.

Bicolor B/W

Bicolor Gray/Wh

Bicolor Black/White

Bicolor Black/White

Bicolor Black/White

Exotic SH

Smiley Face

Eye Patch

Heart

Heart

Van pattern is almost all white with colored patches on head, tail, and spots of the same color on the backside of the kitty. We usually see a separation of color between the ears. Purebred Turkish Vans bear these markings as well as mixed breed cats.
Van Pattern Calico Persian

Van Pattern Gray/White DSH

Van Pattern Calico Siamese
Mitted cat has white on its chin chest, belly and feet.
A Tuxedo cat is has a white chest, black body, and may or may not have white feet
Tuxedo Mitted Gray/White

Tuxedo mitted

Tuxedo mitted Persian

Locket

Wings
Locket is a solid colored cat with a spot of white on the chest.
Bikini marked cat has white on chest and belly.
Wings are white hairs behind and down from the ears. These will usually fall out once the kitten reaches 5-6 months of age.

TORTOISESHELL / CALICO / TORBIE / TABCO

Tortoiseshell cat has red hairs and black hairs in the same coat. Since it takes two X chromosomes to create this coat pattern, tortoiseshell & calico cats are almost exclusively female. (Only in very rare cases will this coat appear on a male and he will most likely be sterile.) When the hairs are blue (grey) and cream, the color is called a dilute tortoiseshell.
Calico cat is a red and black with white patches, a dilute calico one who is blue and cream with white patches.
Torbie is a tortoiseshell (black/red) that bears patches of any tabby pattern.
Tabco is a tabby cat with calico (black/red/white) coloring.

Tortoiseshell Persian

Calico Persian

Torbie

Tabco (calico tabby)

Dilute Tortoiseshell

Dilute Calico

Dilute Torbie

Dilute Tabco

SIAMESE CATS

Siamese have an acute intelligence, inquisitive personalities and a loving nature. This ancient breed, perhaps the oldest of all our cats, is able to communicate like no other. The Siamese voice is legendary. They speak both with their voice and with their body. They are the quintessential "people" cat, for they love to be in your lap, on your bed, at your table, and in your heart!

Siamese books from the early 1960's show the Siamese as having a round head, a round body, and crossed almond shaped blue eyes. This type was called the Apple Head Siamese. Siamese books starting in the 1980's show a sleek, long tapered body with a wedge head, that they call the Traditional Siamese.

Siamese still come in four "pure" colors: Seal, Chocolate, Blue, and Lilac. The other colors: cream, red, and the patterns of lynx, tortie and confetti are known as Siamese Colorpoints in the UK, and Colorpoint Shorthairs in the US.

POINT COLORS

Siamese: short coat; seal (almost black), blue, chocolate (is the dilute of seal), and lilac (is the dilute of blue). The pointed coat color and pattern is the result of gene mutations that cause the coolest parts of the cat's body to be a different color or pattern than the rest of the body. The areas that bear the pointing are ears, muzzle, tail and legs. A cat with solid color points is generally referred by the color of the points such as a seal, chocolate, blue, lilac, red/flame or creme point like the ones pictured below.


Seal Point	Chocolate Point	Blue Point & Choc Point	Lilac Point	Creme Point	Flame Point

COLORPOINT PATTERNS include all the Colors listed above with the Patterns listed here: tortie point (tortoiseshell points), lynx point (striped points), tortie lynx point (torbie points), confetti or party point (spotted)


Choc Tortie Point	Lilac Lynx Point	Seal Tortie Lynx Point	Seal Torti Party Point

BLUE-EYED CATS:

Balinese Longhaired mutation of the Siamese; with colors of seal, blue, chocolate, lilac

Birman: large, long stocky cat, long silky hair, not as think as that of the Persian, but it doesn't mat. Face, legs, tail are darker, similar to the Siamese & Himalayan color patterns of seal point, chocolate point, blue point, lilac point, red point and cream point, and colors in the lynx point and parti-point families. Almost round eyes, strong face, with heavy jaws, full chin, Roman nose, with nostrils set low. White Feet are ideally symmetrical. The gloves on the front feet, if perfect, go across in an even line, and on the back feet end in a point up the back of the leg, called laces. It is very difficult to breed a cat with four perfect white gloves.

Himalayan

Javenese: long coat; lynx, tortie, flame, cream

Ragdoll

Ragamuffin

Siamese

Snowshoe: The Snowshoe Cat is a deliberate hybridization of the Siamese and the American Bicolor cats. The breed began in 1960 in Philadelphia, USA. This was an era when a number of new breeds were being created or discovered. This is a rare breed. A Mitted Snowshoe has white on the paws, chest, back legs and chin only. The Pointed Snowshoe Cat has pointing like a Siamese and no white patches.

Tonkinese: The Tonkinese Cats are also a deliberate (human created) cross between a Traditional or Classic Siamese Cat and a Burmese Cat. The Traditional Siamese is also called an "Applehead". The head of a Traditional Siamese is apple shaped compared to the "wedgie or wedge" triangular shaped Modern Siamese. Some people think the Modern Siamese is more true to the original Siamese and some think the opposite. The early history of the cat breeds is often vague.