"Cloaked" Tabby

The Goodbye Bird

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Does this have a proper name? I've been referring to it as a "cloaked" tabby in my head. This is the best picture I can find of it at the moment, but some have absolutely no "holes" at all in their cloaks - their backs are completely black. Some you would mistake for a solid cat, and then you see the front of the face face and belly and... oh it's a tabby.

This type of tabby may be related to Bengals but I've seen it in random bred litters of kittens.

00101_db3dwfrWWRF_0lM0t2_600x450.jpg
 

lutece

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In Bengals, it's called a sheet marble.

Sometimes you will also see that effect on young classic tabby kittens that are not Bengals, especially longhairs (for example I've seen Maine Coons that had a dark back like that as babies).
 

StefanZ

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Lutece is surely right. But otherwise, an apparent tabby but without no visible tabby markings on backside nor sides, its usually a ticked tabby.
 

Willowy

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Ah, yeah, I see it now. A couple of the Bengal kittens on the "pregnant cat overdue?" thread have that pattern. I googled "sheet marble Bengal" and that seems to be it. "Cloaked" kind of sounds cooler though ;).
 
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The Goodbye Bird

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I swear they're not calicos. And this actually isn't a really good example of what I'm talking about because they have lighter colour peeking through on the back. There are ones with perfectly solid cloaks. You would swear they were black cats if the face wasn't showing.

I'm interested in whether the sheet marble could be used to create a darker cat with blue eyes. I notice that wherever tabby colourpoints have their markings, they are sometimes (but not always) darker by far than their solid colourpoint counterparts. So I'm thinking, theoretically, a cat with a very strong tabby "cloak" over colourpoint would be a richer brown throughout the body instead of light cream or eggshell white. See... I think this cat is colourpoint.

00707_lqw63tr7MMS_0ew0fQ_600x450.jpg


I even wonder what would happen if you bred cloaked tabbies until they were completely black, always selecting for cloaks that are more complete and cover more and more. Theoretically they would be hyperblack. I know there's a gene in mice that produces a hyperblack: A blacker than black mouse that exhibits a darker, truer, intense jet-black. Obviously it's not the same gene, but I would be interested if a hyperblack cat could be produced.
 

Willowy

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You seem to have a lot of big ideas for breeding! Which is fine, but 2 things: first, most things you can think of, somebody else has already tried. It might be good to see if anyone has tried that, what their results were, and why they quit.

Second, when breeding for a new trait, you have to produce a LOT of animals to get even one that fits what you're looking for. Obviously, some unpleasant solutions have been used in the past, I'll assume those aren't acceptable to you, so before you go for it, make sure you have a plan for how to find homes for all of them.
 
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The Goodbye Bird

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first, most things you can think of, somebody else has already tried. It might be good to see if anyone has tried that, what their results were, and why they quit.
Well that's why I'm asking here. Anything that comes from wild (like coat varieties that are from Bengals) is going to be pretty new and unexplored was my thinking.

I'm not going to do every idea that pops into my head. I don't want to create a bunch of cats I can't place. I ultimately want to settle on one new thing and really devote to it. Unless I get a better idea I still want to find one of these super dark cats with blue eyes and make black-point-seal-body modern wedgehead Siamese. And only if I can get a provisional breed approval of course. If they don't approve it I'll just breed regular Oriental Shorthairs and be happy with that.

d1.jpg


I actually found one already that wasn't spayed and I passed over it because it was too fluffy. Now I can't find another and I'm kicking myself. I'm utterly convinced it's new though. I contacted several breed foundations and nobody responded to say it was something already known.
 
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The Goodbye Bird

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Sheet marble snow Bengals aren't darker in color than other snow Bengals. They just happen to have tabby markings covering the back.
It does make whatever the sheet covers slightly darker than the back of a Siamese cat so that in some parts of the body, you have the appearance of a solid, darker-coloured cat.

Admittedly I was hoping it would be a little darker than that.
 

lutece

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The young marble kitten you posted above appears to be mink or sepia, not colorpoint (snow), by the way. Colorpoint would be lighter at such a young age.
 
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