What Color Would You Call This?

Friskylady

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I’m always interested in learning the right terminology and genetics behind coat colors and types and all that, but with this boy, I’m not sure all the proper terminology for his coloring, so any suggestions are appreciated.
 
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Friskylady

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I was thinking perhaps a smoke or something, but looking for some suggestions from people that are more experienced with color traits than myself.
 

Meowmee

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Gorgeous kitty 😻 I would say he is a dlh ginger (red) tabby with white, maybe a tuxedo so bicolor too. He has a lot of light areas, but I would not say he is dilute because the stripes on his face are quite dark. I’m not sure about his tabby pattern. It could be classic.

If he is dilute he would be called cream or buff… I have a domestic short hair cream called cinnamon. I should’ve called him cream puff, or Creamsicle.😹

Such a beauty! He looks like a forest cat type also. A bit nfc.
If you look up all the different colors for Norwegian forest cats you’re gonna find it even more confusing because there are so many variations. Like he could be a cream, tabby, shaded, etc. lol. I found a link, but I think a lot of those cats that are pictured there are not actually nfc.

Here is another link there are about 60 variations of different colors apparently for NFC.

 
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Maurey

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Looks like he's cream with a somatic patch of non-dilute red on his head :) Also looks to have a white marking over his nose. Is there any other white on him?
 
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Friskylady

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Gorgeous kitty 😻 I would say he is a dlh ginger (red) tabby with white, maybe a tuxedo so bicolor too. He has a lot of light areas, but I would not say he is dilute because the stripes on his face are quite dark. I’m not sure about his tabby pattern. It could be classic.

If he is dilute he would be called cream or buff… I have a domestic short hair cream called cinnamon. I should’ve called him cream puff, or Creamsicle.😹

Such a beauty! He looks like a forest cat type also. A bit nfc.
If you look up all the different colors for Norwegian forest cats you’re gonna find it even more confusing because there are so many variations. Like he could be a cream, tabby, shaded, etc. lol. I found a link, but I think a lot of those cats that are pictured there are not actually nfc.

Here is another link there are about 60 variations of different colors apparently for NFC.

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Thank you! He is NFC mix, so good guess there. So his lighter and darker shades is likely from the tabby pattern?
 
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Friskylady

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Looks like he's cream with a somatic patch of non-dilute red on his head :) Also looks to have a white marking over his nose. Is there any other white on him?
That’s all the white I see, on his nose and chin. I can’t tell if maybe there is some on his chest not. He’s somebody else’s cat, we were just talking about his coloring and I was a bit confused because I couldn’t totally account for his lighter and darker shades (unless it was some tabby markings in his long fur that just show like that, so that’s why I said maybe smoke, but he doesn’t necessarily look smoke to me) and especially for that darker red strip on his face.
 

Maurey

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That’s all the white I see, on his nose and chin. I can’t tell if maybe there is some on his chest not. He’s somebody else’s cat, we were just talking about his coloring and I was a bit confused because I couldn’t totally account for his lighter and darker shades (unless it was some tabby markings in his long fur that just show like that, so that’s why I said maybe smoke, but he doesn’t necessarily look smoke to me) and especially for that darker red strip on his face.
He's cream solid, he just has a mutation on a patch of his skin where it's darker that doesn't have the dilute gene, making it darker :) If it was caused by the striping, it'd be more symmetrical and not have a defined edge.
 
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Friskylady

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Ok, that makes more sense to me. I don’t know cat genetics too well, but I do understand dog genetics a lot better, so all the information is very helpful. In dogs, you don’t have a dilute gene that affects red, it’s an intensity gene, for example in Golden Retrievers, you can find very deep red, or very light cream/white, and everywhere in between. And it just has to do with how intense the pigmentation is. But they are usually pretty solid in whatever color they are. The yellow Labrador Retriever and the white German Shepherd are affected by the same color genetics as the Golden Retriever, just different levels of pigmentation.

The genetic makeup can be very interesting if one understands how it comes together. Every living thing is affected by different genetics. That’s why I want to learn more about cat genetics.
 

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Thank you! He is NFC mix, so good guess there. So his lighter and darker shades is likely from the tabby pattern?
I knew it 😀 My Sybil was part nfc too.

I would guess so, but he could be some type of solid. I’m not sure about all of the genetics of solid cats and what they look like. A lot of cats that are not visibly Tabby still have markings showing on their head, especially when they are younger.

My cinnamon is a cream, dilute ginger, classic tabby tuxedo. Here’s a picture of him, he has some darker stripes on his body too. He always looks darker in photographs than in real life. It’s often harder to see the patterns on long hair cats too.
Cinn is a classic tabby as you can see from the bulls eye pattern on his side. Next to Merlin has darker areas look relatively light though.

This is Merlin who was a giant dsh ginger tabby tuxedo with a mackerel pattern, but he had some spots too. His brother Marlon was a twin, but he had some white spotting on his face like your guy does.

I did not notice the spots on Merlin at first on his body because he was very fluffy with very thick plush fur for a short hair cat. And he had longer fur tufts on his paws although you can’t see them in this photo. I’ll try to find another picture with them. He might’ve been a broken mackerel. He had a beautiful scarab like pattern with little spots on the top of his head.

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Meowmee

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Ok, that makes more sense to me. I don’t know cat genetics too well, but I do understand dog genetics a lot better, so all the information is very helpful. In dogs, you don’t have a dilute gene that affects red, it’s an intensity gene, for example in Golden Retrievers, you can find very deep red, or very light cream/white, and everywhere in between. And it just has to do with how intense the pigmentation is. But they are usually pretty solid in whatever color they are. The yellow Labrador Retriever and the white German Shepherd are affected by the same color genetics as the Golden Retriever, just different levels of pigmentation.

The genetic makeup can be very interesting if one understands how it comes together. Every living thing is affected by different genetics. That’s why I want to learn more about cat genetics.
Also in NFC there was a mutation which created a new color called amber, here is an article. I first read about this a few years ago another site.

Apparently it’s specific only to Norwegian forest cats and it hasn’t shown up in the domestic population at all. It’s very interesting because the kittens start out with darker tabby patterns or darker solid and over time they get yellow and peach color replacement of the darker color due to the mutation, they can look similar to ginger cats but genetically they’re different. But some of the darker color remains in areas and one pic here of a blue amber tabby kitten has only a little peach.

 
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Friskylady

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I knew it 😀 My Sybil was part nfc too.

I would guess so, but he could be some type of solid. I’m not sure about all of the genetics of solid cats and what they look like. A lot of cats that are not visibly Tabby still have markings showing on their head, especially when they are younger.

My cinnamon is a cream, dilute ginger, classic tabby tuxedo. Here’s a picture of him, he has some darker stripes on his body too. He always looks darker in photographs than in real life. It’s often harder to see the patterns on long hair cats too.
Cinn is a classic tabby as you can see from the bulls eye pattern on his side. Next to Merlin has darker areas look relatively light though.

This is Merlin who was a giant dsh ginger tabby tuxedo with a mackerel pattern, but he had some spots too. His brother Marlon was a twin, but he had some white spotting on his face like your guy does.

I did not notice the spots on Merlin at first on his body because he was very fluffy with very thick plush fur for a short hair cat. And he had longer fur tufts on his paws although you can’t see them in this photo. I’ll try to find another picture with them. He might’ve been a broken mackerel. He had a beautiful scarab like pattern with little spots on the top of his head.

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Beautiful cats! I love the different tabby patterns, they give so much character to each individual cat. Thank you for all the information on everything. I found an article that goes into detail about the genetics of all the different cat colors and patterns and it was very interesting the variety that cats come with, but I think there still is a lot of factors they haven’t figured out how to test for or how they fall into place in the great genetic puzzle. But that’s alright, just more character, uniqueness and beauty to love.
 
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Friskylady

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Also in NFC there was a mutation which created a new color called amber, here is an article. I first read about this a few years ago another site.

Apparently it’s specific only to Norwegian forest cats and it hasn’t shown up in the domestic population at all. It’s very interesting because the kittens start out with darker tabby patterns or darker solid and over time they get yellow and peach color replacement of the darker color due to the mutation, they can look similar to ginger cats but genetically they’re different. But some of the darker color remains in areas and one pic here of a blue amber tabby kitten has only a little peach.

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That is a very interesting article, interesting because the same gene that is the cause of the amber color in NFC is also the same gene responsible for white GSDs and the red or yellow in other dog breeds such as Irish Setters and Golden Retrievers and Yellow labs. It’s also the same genetics responsible for chestnut horses. So it’s interesting, but not surprising, that it is also found in cats.
 

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That is a very interesting article, interesting because the same gene that is the cause of the amber color in NFC is also the same gene responsible for white GSDs and the red or yellow in other dog breeds such as Irish Setters and Golden Retrievers and Yellow labs. It’s also the same genetics responsible for chestnut horses. So it’s interesting, but not surprising, that it is also found in cats.
Yeah, I noticed that it’s also similar for red haired people. But it’s apparently different than the gene that causes the red or orange color in ginger cats. I’m a partial redhead, my grandmother on my father’s side had deep red hair and green eyes. And my father had a redhead gene with a red beard and blue green eyes. When I was a child, I had strawberry blonde hair. I always had a lot of red and it sometimes went more auburn at times, although now the red is all gone and it’s more silver, gray and chatain clair, with a tiny bit of red sometimes. I miss my red. One of my teachers told me he had very red hair and then over the years it turned brown, lol.
 
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Friskylady

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Yeah, I noticed that it’s also similar for red haired people. But it’s apparently different than the gene that causes the red or orange color in ginger cats. I’m a partial redhead, my grandmother on my father’s side had deep red hair and green eyes. And my father had a redhead gene with a red beard and blue green eyes. When I was a child, I had strawberry blonde hair. I always had a lot of red and it sometimes went more auburn at times, although now the red is all gone and it’s more silver, gray and chatain clair, with a tiny bit of red sometimes. I miss my red. One of my teachers told me he had very red hair and then over the years it turned brown, lol.
Yes I understand it is the same thing in red head people. I think red hair is awesome. Too bad you lost your red. I know some redheads that don’t like their red and I don’t understand why. But everyone can like what they like, that’s just fine too!
That post mentioned it being the same thing in people and chestnut horses, but it didn’t mention dogs. But I know it’s the same thing in dogs as well. We did dog breeding for some years a little while back and I did all the genetic and health testing and all the record keeping and all that hard work, so that’s why I find it very interesting and have some understanding in genetics.

The gene that causes the orange/ginger/red in cats is something totally different. It’s an expressive gene over most other colors.
 

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Yes I understand it is the same thing in red head people. I think red hair is awesome. Too bad you lost your red. I know some redheads that don’t like their red and I don’t understand why. But everyone can like what they like, that’s just fine too!
That post mentioned it being the same thing in people and chestnut horses, but it didn’t mention dogs. But I know it’s the same thing in dogs as well. We did dog breeding for some years a little while back and I did all the genetic and health testing and all the record keeping and all that hard work, so that’s why I find it very interesting and have some understanding in genetics.

The gene that causes the orange/ginger/red in cats is something totally different. It’s an expressive gene over most other colors.
I thought that one mentioned it. Maybe it was another one that I read because I remember reading some thing about dogs somewhere too. Yeah I have always loved my red and even dyed it more red with henna for quite a few years but then after I had Covid, I started having hair loss and I just stopped coloring all together. I don’t know why people don’t like their red hair because it’s beautiful but to each their own. When I was singing in the choir, everyone used to call me red, and they loved my red hair. 😀

It seems like the fact that people with red hair can get more red and less red over time is suggestive that it’s similar to what’s going on with the Norwegian forest cats. I remember when I lived in France for a year my hair got very red that year and I don’t know why. I wasn’t coloring it at all. I remember a picture that was taken when I came back and it was very long and it looked really really auburn red, which I did not notice while I was there.

But not like my grandmother’s hair which was what they used to call a carrot top. She had very, very light skin and large freckles too, and she couldn’t go in the sun at all. It made her sick. I have freckles too but just tiny little ones and I don’t get them on my face anymore for some reason.

I remember my roommate then who had an Irish background had very dark brown hair and she had similar freckles to my grandmother and light skin, but not quite as light. I didn’t know that she had those freckles at first because she used to put tons of make up on over them.

Also, when I was born, I had black hair, a lot of it. Then it fell out and grew back in strawberry blonde. 😹
 
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Friskylady

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I thought that one mentioned it. Maybe it was another one that I read because I remember reading some thing about dogs somewhere too. Yeah I have always loved my red and even dyed it more red with henna for quite a few years but then after I had Covid, I started having hair loss and I just stopped coloring all together. I don’t know why people don’t like their red hair because it’s beautiful but to each their own. When I was singing in the choir, everyone used to call me red, and they love my red hair. 😀

It seems like the fact that people with red hair can get more red and less red overtime is suggestive that it’s similar to what’s going on with the Norwegian forest cats. I remember when I lived in France for a year my hair got very red that year and I don’t know why. I wasn’t coloring it at all. I remember a picture that was taken when I came back and it was very long and it looked really really auburn red, which I did not notice while I was there.

But not like my grandmother’s hair which was what they used to call a carrot top. She had very, very light skin and large freckles too, and she couldn’t go in the sun at all. It made her sick. I have freckles too but just tiny little ones and I don’t get them on my face anymore for some reason.

I remember my roommate then who had an Irish background had very dark brown hair and she had similar freckles to my grandmother and light skin, but not quite as light. I didn’t know that she had those freckles at first because she used to put tons of make up on over them.
It is very interesting. It could all be something like what I mentioned in an earlier post about the intensity of the red, even in the NFCs being lighter and darker. I don’t know if they are able to test for the intensity of the red/yellow pigment in cats, but I know you can in dogs. They scale it on a 1-10 level, 10 being a very deep red, and 1 being white. Even in dogs with tan points (Tri-color, traditional GSDs, anything with tan points) that intensity gene affects it, so sometimes you find dogs with deeper colored tan points and some with very pale tan points. Nearly all solid white dogs have that gene with intensity being very low. Even in horses you get some lighter and darker chestnuts, but there’s not as much of a difference there as there is in dogs. So it could be something like that why some people have a deeper or lighter red, or more or less red in their brown.
 

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It is very interesting. It could all be something like what I mentioned in an earlier post about the intensity of the red, even in the NFCs being lighter and darker. I don’t know if they are able to test for the intensity of the red/yellow pigment in cats, but I know you can in dogs. They scale it on a 1-10 level, 10 being a very deep red, and 1 being white. Even in dogs with tan points (Tri-color, traditional GSDs, anything with tan points) that intensity gene affects it, so sometimes you find dogs with deeper colored tan points and some with very pale tan points. Nearly all solid white dogs have that gene with intensity being very low. Even in horses you get some lighter and darker chestnuts, but there’s not as much of a difference there as there is in dogs. So it could be something like that why some people have a deeper or lighter red, or more or less red in their brown.
Yes, sounds like it makes sense… I think having bred, dogs you know a lot more about it than I do. I was thinking of purchasing a book about cat genetics, which had at least one or two sections on color and pattern probably. But it was very expensive, hopefully at some point I will.

I think also over time the amount of the melanin and the other pigments and everything that you need for skin and hair color can change. Just like it’s affected by hormones. I know that plays a role in straight or curly hair. Because both my brother and I had straight hair and then at some point in the teen years, me not until my 20s both went curly.

I also talked to a friend years ago who said she had curly hair I think until she had her daughter, and then her hair went totally straight.

But the hair color is more complex. I think I thought that if you had really bright red hair like my grandma that it could never go away. But my teacher told me he had that and then it went to sort of an Auburn Brown instead, whereas my grandmother was very red and then her she slowly went gray much later in life, but it always kept some of the red.

I have to read more about it. That is so interesting that there are different shades and tones in dogs too. I have to read more about these two different genes that cause the red and yellow in cats. It’s called yellow for amber, but if you look at some of the pictures of those cats, it looks just like ginger, which makes it confusing. In that article, she has pictures of cats that look exactly like ginger cats, but they’re amber cats.

For some reason, I did not realize that cinnamon was a cream dilute ginger for a long time, he often looked darker in the sunlight outside. Until I saw him next to Merlin and he looks so much lighter. We have had a lot of gingers in this area that I rescued and some of them were very light like that, one was a kitten who I called creamsicle. I know they are not Norwegian forest cat at all so they are not Amber.

I also noticed with Merlin that as he got older, his ginger seemed to be getting a little bit lighter in areas.

I don’t know as much about dog color genetics. We had a purebred beagle when I was younger, who was white black and I guess red. She was a very beautiful dog and she was my BFF when I was a young child and into my teens.

I love border collies and I have hoped one day to have one, but I don’t know if it’s ever going to happen. Not with my cats though. Somehow, I became a cat person after one dog … I think it would be too upsetting for them. I have seen two people rehoming their border collies in the past, three or four months here.

When I was in Scotland years ago on a trip, I was painting by the side of the road in Skye and two border collies came to sit with me. They were short hair. They were such sweet dogs. They wanted to drink some water so I just held the bottle and they drank from the stream from above in the air. Eventually, their owner drove up and was furious at them for not doing what they were supposed to be doing. And they had to get in the car and go away. 😹

I guess what I am wondering here is are the red O locus gene and the yellow gene or the amber gene really two different pigments? Because they look exactly the same to me except for the expression of whether it was a black amber or a blue amber, etc.

I think I answered my own question here because I looked it up and according to AI anyway from websites, it says no, they are not the same because the Amber is a diluted black controlled by e locus and the O gene controls the expression of orange pigment.

However, they still look very similar if not the same, and diluted black is usually blue not Amber. We know that some of the original pigment, which is either black or blue still remains on the cat. In fact, one of those nfc blue amber tabby, cats barely had any peach on her.
 
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