What color is she becoming?

[Nuts Bolts and Screws]

This is one of my feral colony kittens, turned barn kitten. She is now about 11 months old, and I really don’t think this is a fever coat. Both of her brothers are now straight black, but she’s far from it and gaining more color as she ages. I was guessing a smoke for awhile, but now I really don’t know.

 

[NekoM]

She looks amazing. Physically specifically ears and eyes put her at an advantage to survive, she’s alert 24/7. I’m probably completely wrong and other members may have better answers but she has a sort of Black/Mink thing going on. I think she still falls into the Black cat category though.

 

[Nuts Bolts and Screws]

I think she still falls into the Black cat category though.

Her brothers are completely black. Side by side it is a very striking contrast.

 

[NekoM]

I found a picture somewhat similar. He’s apparently a black cat with a white undercoat?

 

[Nuts Bolts and Screws]

I found a picture somewhat similar View attachment 444032

That looks like a smoke to me

 

[NekoM]

Yeah, yours has those stripes. I trained to be a hair colorist, so I can tell you how it works biologically if nothing else. Color is determined by the amount of melanin you’ve inherited - and there’s two types of melanin.: Eumelanin and pheomelanin. She has both types : black is eumelanin and the red tones are pheomelanin. Male cat’s genetics are always dominant, so her brothers inherited the black melanin and she inherited whatever color her mom was…her color will likely lean more to the red tones as she ages. So she’s whatever color you want to call her I guess lol

 

[Nuts Bolts and Screws]

I understand genetics very well, I’m just not familiar with feline genetics. That being said, I do want to know and understand what her actual color is rather than guessing.

 

[LunarFlower]

Looks like a black cat with ghost stripes to me. Sometimes solid cats will show their underlying patterns, especially in sunlight; they usually (but not always) lose their stripes as they age.

 

[Nuts Bolts and Screws]

Looks like a black cat with ghost stripes to me. Sometimes solid cats will show their underlying patterns, especially in sunlight; they usually (but not always) lose their stripes as they age.

That was actually in a very cloudy, overcast early morning lol. No sunlight

 

[LunarFlower]

That was actually in a very cloudy, overcast early morning lol. No sunlight

Maybe Seal Sepia with ghost stripes, then, though more color with age would counteract this likelihood, as Sepias should be getting darker, not lighter.
There are many color modification genes, but most of them do not cause this black-on-black tone as far as I know, unless it is a polygenic trait caused by multiple genes interacting, which is fairly likely.
I assume you eliminated rusting as the cause due to diet or sun exposure, as well. Rusting due to sun is pretty easily spotted and usually doesn't show the striping present here.

Regardless of the cause of the stripes, I would also suspect possible low white spotting due to the locket on chest and abdomen.

If the undercoat is white all over, perhaps there is some smoke going on, too.

An oddity, to be sure. Her colors remind me of melanistic leopards or jaguars. You mentioned her littermates are black; do you know the colors of her mother or common colors and patterns from the feral colony? That may help shed light on possibilities.

 

[Nuts Bolts and Screws]

Maybe Seal Sepia with ghost stripes, then, though more color with age would counteract this likelihood, as Sepias should be getting darker, not lighter.
There are many color modification genes, but most of them do not cause this black-on-black tone as far as I know, unless it is a polygenic trait caused by multiple genes interacting, which is fairly likely.
I assume you eliminated rusting as the cause due to diet or sun exposure, as well. Rusting due to sun is pretty easily spotted and usually doesn't show the striping present here.

Regardless of the cause of the stripes, I would also suspect possible low white spotting due to the locket on chest and abdomen.

If the undercoat is white all over, perhaps there is some smoke going on, too.

An oddity, to be sure. Her colors remind me of melanistic leopards or jaguars. You mentioned her littermates are black; do you know the colors of her mother or common colors and patterns from the feral colony? That may help shed light on possibilities.

Her undercoat is white all over. Her mom is grey with some white, but I don’t know who her dad is. The colony had 3 toms nearby that I know of, a grey tabby, orange tabby, and a tuxedo.

I am much more familiar with canine genetics, and I use Embark for health and trait testing (the breed ID is all crap) as I actively show and compete with my dogs. Is there something similar for cats?

 

[Meowmee]

If her undercoat is truly white she is a smoke most likely. Some of her rusty areas look like what some blk ctas have, and the tabby like ghost tabby stripes.

 

[Nuts Bolts and Screws]

If her undercoat is truly white she is a smoke most likely. Some of her rusty areas look like what some blk ctas have, and the tabby like ghost tabby stripes.

These are her brothers. You can definitely see the difference in the colors.

 

[Meowmee]

These are her brothers. You can definitely see the difference in the colors.

Beautiful boys

 

[LunarFlower]

Her undercoat is white all over. Her mom is grey with some white, but I don’t know who her dad is. The colony had 3 toms nearby that I know of, a grey tabby, orange tabby, and a tuxedo.

I am much more familiar with canine genetics, and I use Embark for health and trait testing (the breed ID is all crap) as I actively show and compete with my dogs. Is there something similar for cats?

Out of those three options, I would say the tuxedo male is the most likely candidate for father if he is a black tuxedo. If mom is genetically blue/grey, dad can't be blue/grey if the daughter is black, as she would inherit both dilute alleles and be dilute herself, which she is obviously not. Dad can't be orange or she would be tortoiseshell/patched (Which she could only be if she is hiding the orange extremely well, which can very rarely happen). The likely option is a non-dilute black-based cat of some variety, and a black tuxedo cat would fit that bill. Of course, dad may have been a wandering Tom, too.

The white undercoat makes me think maybe she is a smoke? If she is a smoke, I think genetically she would be a solid black with ghost stripes, as the silver gene is responsible for both smoke and silver cats, and if she was a true tabby the silver gene would have turned her into a silver tabby, not this black on black stripe we are seeing on her. Maybe some sort of polygenic melanism interacting with the silver gene? I'm not entirely sure. I still am leaning towards ghost stripes on black, but with something else going on to increase the contrast in the black fur.

There is genetic testing for cats, but your mileage may vary with how accurate it is.

Just as in dogs, I wouldn't assign a breed descriptor to any cat based on a genetic test. Cat genetic tests are more likely to show what breeds your cat shares traits with, rather than actual inheritance or ancestry. For instance, I have a very large, longhaired orange tabby male. He is NOT a Maine Coon, and I doubt he has any purebred MC in his ancestry, however, he shares a lot of traits with Maine Coon cats, so he scores fairly highly on genetic tests for MC. He might have an ancestor that comes from the same genetic pool that MC cats come from, but I highly doubt he is directly descended from any MC.

I have had two of my cats tested through Basepaws. The initial test results for traits were very accurate on my male, and not accurate on my female at all (they showed that my obviously colorpoint cat was not a colorpoint), but they periodically update their database with new genetic findings and actually corrected that first report at a later date when their database was updated with new information. I think cat genetic testing is currently too new to be completely accurate, but the more samples are submitted, the better the companies are at correctly identifying traits. Also, several traits that are known to breeders are either unknown genetically or are only now being matched to specific genes, such as silver. Silver is a fairly common trait in many breeds and geneticists have only recently proposed some possible genetic sites for the trait. Many uncommon traits are not able to be tested for yet, and you can forget testing for anything truly remarkably rare unless it has to do with Bengals or other specific purebred cats of interest.

All of that to say, don't expect a perfect result when getting your cat's genetics tested, but I think it is an important part of citizen science if it is something you are inclined to try, as the databases only get better with more information to draw from. Rather than Basepaws, I have seen a lot of breeders recommend the UCDavis veterinary genetics lab, which is considered very accurate, but can only test for a fairly small number of traits. (For example, their base cat coat color panel only includes Agouti, Amber, Brown, Colorpoint, and Dilute). If you want a large number of traits at once, Basepaws is the way to go, so long as you remember to check back in every few months to see if their database has updated with new information. If you do use Basepaws, make sure to get whichever panel is currently providing free lifetime updates; if you are unsure, contact them to make sure before testing your kitties.

There are other cat genetic companies as well, but I can only speak for my experience with Basepaws; I do not know how accurate the others are.

With any of the unusual cat colors and patterns, I highly recommend taking frequent pictures as they grow up, and waiting until they are a year or two old to try to figure out their correct adult color. Many cats change color dramatically over the first two years of life, and if you have an unusual color or pattern emerge, it is good to have those younger photos to compare to the adult coat. Also, if you can get photos of mom, the suspected dad(s), and as many other cats in the colony as possible, you might start seeing some trends that give you clues as to what might be going on.

Cat genetics is wacky, weird, and fun. There are still a lot of traits we haven't identified at all yet, and more are being found and speculated on every year.