Does anyone know what breed of cat this is?

maewkaew

maewkaew

TCS Member
Top Cat
Joined
Aug 22, 2010
Messages
1,820
Purraise
155
Location
Chicago, Illinois, USA
She IS a torbie,  which as you probably know   means tortoiseshell color + tabby pattern.  But she has a couple different  things going on that give her this unusual look . 

 1. There are different categories of tabby patterns  She has a more unusual one called Classic Tabby or Blotched Tabby that makes a sort of swirly pattern.  This is a recessive gene so she had to inherit it from both parents. 

2 . She is  a Silver Classic Torbie.    Silver comes from the Inhibitor gene ,  which makes the background of the tabby pattern be more pale / silver.  ( Via selective breeding they are able to get a greater amount of contrast.  see some of the black silver classic tabbies in pedigreed show cats.   like this guy: http://ticanew.com/public/breeds/as/as_k.jpg     In random bred cats they usually don't have all of the 'background' be as white.  they get more brownish bits  ( that breeders call "tarnishing") .

And in torbies, of course,  the contrast isn't going to look as dramatic as with a black silver.  

  She seems to have quite a bit of red.

The spots on the belly are common in a lot of tabbies especially when young,  but some keep them forever.     It is interesting how she has a lot of the pale color on the belly with just the spots in one part.   That's probably just something that happened by chance.  

Here are some pics that include some Silver Classic Torbie American Shorthairs. 

http://members.shaw.ca/swizniak/girls2.htm

Like most cats,  chances are that yours  is probably not really a particular breed,   but she got an interesting combination of genes that are out there in the general cat population  ( which is where they came from in the breeds --  for example the American Shorthairs I linked are like the pedigreed version of the shorthair farm cats of the early U.S.)   

CUTE face!  
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top