Cat Colours Generations Passed

[Graceful-Lily]

Is is possible to look at a cat's coloration and make an accurate prediction on what their mother and/or father looked like?

For example, Felix has the van cat pattern (but he isn't a van cat) and so does his alleged mother. I say alleged now because is it even possible for a cat with the van pattern to produce kittens with the same van pattern as them? All of Fayola's kittens came out looking like tabbies with splashes of white on them.

 

[lutece]

Depending on the colors involved, sometimes we can make a guess at the colors of the parents, or at least we can guess at some possible colors that the parents might have been.

As far as Felix and Fayola are concerned... Most white markings on cats are caused by the white spotting gene (Ws). This gene typically produces "low white" (tuxedo or bicolor) when a cat has one copy, and "high white" (harlequin or van) when a cat has two copies.

In Fayola's case, since she is a high white cat, she probably has two copies of Ws. If she had a litter of low white kittens, it's likely that the father of those kittens did not have white markings, so her kittens each inherited one copy of Ws from Fayola and ended up with low white.

However if Felix is her son from a previous litter and he has high white, probably Felix's father had white on him, and Felix inherited one copy of Ws from each parent.

Does that help answer the question?

 

[Graceful-Lily]

Depending on the colors involved, sometimes we can make a guess at the colors of the parents, or at least we can guess at some possible colors that the parents might have been.

As far as Felix and Fayola are concerned... Most white markings on cats are caused by the white spotting gene (Ws). This gene typically produces "low white" (tuxedo or bicolor) when a cat has one copy, and "high white" (harlequin or van) when a cat has two copies.

In Fayola's case, since she is a high white cat, she probably has two copies of Ws. If she had a litter of low white kittens, it's likely that the father of those kittens did not have white markings, so her kittens each inherited one copy of Ws from Fayola and ended up with low white.

However if Felix is her son from a previous litter and he has high white, probably Felix's father had white on him, and Felix inherited one copy of Ws from each parent.

Does that help answer the question?

Thank you!! This makes so much more sense now.

 

[Katie M]

Sometimes it's really easy. My Charlie is black. Since males only inherit color from their mother, it means Charlie's must've been either black or tortoiseshell.

One of my childhood cats was orange. His brother was cream and his sister was grey. I can't remember what Peanut's mother looked like, but she had to have been tortoiseshell. There was also a dilution gene floating around.

 

[lutece]

Sometimes it's really easy. My Charlie is black. Since males only inherit color from their mother, it means Charlie's must've been either black or tortoiseshell.

If Charlie is solid black, Charlie's mom could have been nearly any color other than "high white" (van or harlequin) or red (orange). She could have been brown tabby, blue tabby, black, blue, tortie, dilute tortie, torbie, dilute torbie, or any of those colors with white... she could even have been seal point, blue point, seal lynx point, blue lynx point, or a tortie version of any of those point colors, or pointed with white... Finally she might have been solid white (dominant white)... And those are just the common colors she might have been, not counting the rare colors

 

[Katie M]

If Charlie is solid black, Charlie's mom could have been nearly any color other than "high white" (van or harlequin) or red (orange). She could have been brown tabby, blue tabby, black, blue, tortie, dilute tortie, torbie, dilute torbie, or any of those colors with white... she could even have been seal point, blue point, seal lynx point, blue lynx point, or a tortie version of any of those point colors, or pointed with white... Finally she might have been solid white (dominant white)... And those are just the common colors she might have been, not counting the rare colors

And I thought it was so simple

Can you explain Selene? She's a grey tabby.

 

[lutece]

Is Selene a blue tabby (gray stripes on beige background) or brown tabby (black stripes on gray-brown background)?

We can deduce that her parents weren't red (orange) since she's not red or tortie/torbie. But her mom could possibly have been a tortie/torbie.

Since she's a tabby, we know that at least one of her parents was also a tabby (or dominant white masking tabby). The other parent might have been either tabby or solid.

If she's a blue tabby, both parents were carrying dilute, but we can't tell from looking at her whether they were blue themselves, or just carriers of the dilute gene.

One of her parents might have been pointed in color, but not both of her parents. (Colorpoint is recessive, so two pointed parents can only produce pointed offspring.)

If she doesn't have any white on her, her parents might or might not have had "low white" but we can guess that neither parent had "high white."

Finally, one or even both of her parents could possibly have been dominant white in color, but that's not very common.

 

[Katie M]

I think this shows her coloring fairly well-

I think she's grey on beige? When she was a kitten, I thought she had some white, but it turned out to just be a very light grey (or beige?)

 

[lutece]

Yes! I agree that she looks like a blue tabby without white. Such a pretty color!

 

[Katie M]

Yes! I agree that she looks like a blue tabby without white. Such a pretty color!

Thanks, I agree