He has different fur on his belly??

[Briemmartin]

We got my youngest cat (Niko) when he was very little, and he was fuzzy and solid black. At the time he was classified as an American medium hair. But as he got older we started to notice his belly was turning a grayish white (cute!), well now he is about a year and a half old and much fluffier than I anticipated, which I love! However we started to notice that his white hair was a completely different type of fur than the rest of his body, it is almost wool like. It’s only on his belly, no where else and it is much longer than the rest of his hair. He is perfectly healthy, goes in for check ups, all of it! What I’m wondering is if this is something specific to a certain breed? He is most definitely not purebred, his entire litter (they were found by the shelter all together with no mother) was orange tabby’s and one other black one, but they were all short hair while he was so fuzzy! I was just wondering if anyone could give me some insight! I’ll add a few pictures of him, hopefully you can see what I mean. Thank you lovelies in advance!

P.s. I know he has a resting grump face, it’s part of why I picked him! He was the most cuddle loving and playful in his litter and still looked ticked while doing it!

 

[StefanZ]

Yeah, the coloring is a little odd; pitch black forrard end, and the rest of the body brown, with whitish belly...

Lets us take some guesses:
The fur lengh is easiest. Him the only littermate whom is longhair is easiest to explain. The parents were shorthairs, but both do carry the longhair gene. This will statistically give one kitten of four being longhair, while the littermates are shorthair.
The statistics are reliable on 1000 kittens, but arent ironclad on ONE litter.


The extra long fur on longhairs may sometimes look almost whitish in places. Its most common seen on the mane of long haired cats, when the mane seems almost whitish, and may give an impression of them being a pointed cat of sorts. Yeah, I have myself had fell into this particular trap occasionally!

He hasnt no great mane to boast about, but he has extra long belly fur... So his fate is to have the whitish color on his belly. Its probably NOT true white spot.

Coloring; some littermates red, some black... I presume momma could be a black tortie... So her childs would be black or red, girls could also be black torties (ie girls could be black and red).

 

[Briemmartin]

Thank you for the input!! So do you think that his belly is a different texture because it is extra long and it’s a different coat of some sort??

 

[StefanZ]

Yes, its quite common cats have extra long fur on the belly. Even my shorthair Russian Blue champion stud had a longish fur down there, quite longish for a shorthair.

 

[cataholic07]

I believe he is what is known a black smoke, its a fairly common coloring. They tend to have a light undercoat and it shows up as grey even white on certain spots like the chest and belly. It's not breed specific, and your kitty is just a domestic long hair. I have two longhair brothers who had a mom and dad who were short hair, all but one of the kittens were longhair. I have a longhair kitten, both her parents were short hair and she's the only longhair out of a litter of 5. It is also very common for black cats who sun tan lots to turn brown because of the sun

And yes most longhair cats have a wide variety of textures and lengths of fur. My one boy Jethro is all fluff except his legs lol, while his brother isn't as fluffy. Just his chest is super fluffy the rest is only sort of fluffy, and he has crimpled fur texture.

 

[Briemmartin]

Thank you all so much!! It means the world!

 

[lutece]

I believe he is what is known a black smoke, its a fairly common coloring. They tend to have a light undercoat and it shows up as grey even white on certain spots like the chest and belly. It's not breed specific, and your kitty is just a domestic long hair.

It's common for solid black cats to have some light colored, grayish or brownish undercoat on the chest, belly and ruff. I understand why this would make you think of black smoke, but it is not the same. Black smoke cats have white at the base of every hair. The white section of hair is revealed when the cat moves or the coat is parted. Here are a couple of examples of longhaired black smoke cats. You can see how the base of the coat is white all over the body.