

Whilst the Australian Mist, as its name suggests, comes in soft, muted pastel colors.Īnd the dainty Egyptian Mau weighs just 8lbs on average, whilst the colossal Cheetoh can reach up to 23lbs! Whilst a Savannah cat has a close cropped coat, a long tail, and legs that go on for miles.īengal cats come in a kaleidoscope of rich browns, bold silvers and amber reds. Since the spotted tabby pattern can appear on several kinds of cat, there’s a remarkable amount of physical variation between one spotted tabby and the next.įor example, a spotty American Bobtail cat is short and stocky with a thick medium long coat, and a short tail. Well their spots are created by one or more additional genes, located elsewhere in the genetic code, which turn mackerel stripes into spots by breaking them up.Īt the time of publication though, geneticists haven’t yet been able to locate exactly where those additional genes are. So where does the spotted tabby cat fit in?
#Ticked tabby series#
These three genes form a series – each occupies the same spot in a cat’s genetic code, so that cats end up with one, or another. mackerel stripes, caused by the T m gene.ticking, as seen on Abyssinian cats, caused by the T a gene.In fact, patterns caused by tabby genes include: “Tabby” might call stripes to mind for most cat lovers, but in fact there are several tabby patterns, only a few of which are stripey. The Egyptian Mau is widely regarded as the oldest naturally occurring spotted tabby breed.īut since the Bengal burst onto the scene in the 1970s they have stormed to the top of The International Cat Associations breed registry, in terms of numbers. Tabby spots are special because they are arranged in regularly spaced horizontal or vertical rows – unlike the randomly arranged patches of a calico cat, or the spots on a Dalmatian dog for example. The spotted tabby cat was likely one of the first “fancy” patterns to appear in cats following domestication.

The original pattern of the pet cat’s closest wild ancestor was black and brown mackerel tabby.
