How would you describe this cat?

[Mistawis22]

He was labeled as a brown medium hair tabby by the shelter. He’s a mackerel, I can see that from his kitten pic but his stripes are disappearing. Now he almost looks ticked. Is he just a typical brown mackerel? He does have ear tufts and tufts on his paws and very long whiskers, but his face is very much domestic shorthair to me.
They also said he was two years old but he does not act like it. He is insanely wild and playful, zooming around the house at full speed and constantly into everything like a kitten. His paws are big too.

 

[thefiresidecat]

a long hair for sure. with the amount of fluff on the tufties and tail and the general look over all.. what part of the world are you in? is it a warmer area? I think there may be some maine coon in there somewhere with that tail and those tufties is he a big cat? that tail is seriously floofy..

 

[LunarFlower]

I would say black-based mackerel or black-based broken mackerel, with the long hair breaking up the markings to make them more diffuse. I could believe a ticked tabby, but I think there is enough definition to the markings to reject that.

The term “brown tabby” is not really a genetic term. To label tabbies, the base color is whatever color the darkest stripe is. This is genetically a standard black tabby.

True “brown” tabbies are actually chocolate tabbies, which this is not.

Some people confuse the term “black” tabby to mean a black ghost tabby or a silver tabby, but in reality, black tabbies look like this cat.