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Tabby cat

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This article refers to a feature of cats. For other uses see Tabby cat (disambiguation).
Brown mackerel tabby domestic longhair

Tabby cats are often mistaken as a certain breed of cat. The term tabby actually refers to the stripes, dots and swirling patterns of the cat's coat. The tabby pattern is believed to be the original basic cat pattern, and the closest to their distant ancestors. Tabby coloration is found in many breeds of cat, as well as among the general 'moggy' (mixed-breed or mongrel) population. When cats are allowed to breed randomly, the coloration of the population tends toward brown mackerel tabbies with green eyes, leading geneticists to believe that this is the common wild phenotype of the domestic cat.

The word comes from French tabis, which was earlier atabis, and in medieval Latin attabi. The initial origin of the word seems to be from the Attabiyah section of Baghdad where a type of striped silk was made that was later used to describe cats.

Tabby colours and patterns

There are three tabby patterns that have been shown to be genetically distinct: classic, mackerel and ticked, and a fourth variation, spotted, that is still undergoing debate as to its cause. The color most recognizable as a tabby is called brown tabby in the US and black tabby in the UK. Technically it is a black cat with an agouti gene that causes the fur to break into patterns of black and brown. While the name "black tabby" is more correct, the brown tabby moniker is firmly established in the US and any change is doubtful.

Pattern is not connected to colour at all in cats, and as such any cat colour including tortoiseshells can appear in any tabby pattern. Tortoiseshell tabby cats are often called Torbies. White spotting of any level can also appear in combination with tabby patterns.

The four tabby types are due to 2 distinct gene loci and one modifier:

  • The primary tabby pattern gene, Mc/mc, sets the basic pattern of stripes that underlies the coat: the basic wild-type tabby gene, Mc, produces what is called a mackerel striped tabby (stripes look like thin fishbones and may break up into bars or spots); while a recessive mutant, mc, produces a blotched or classic tabby pattern (broad bands, whorls, and spirals of dark color on pale background usually with bulls-eye or oyster pattern on flank.)
  • Secondary tabby pattern genes such as Ta / ta are on a different locus. A dominant mutation produces an Abyssinian ticked or non-patterned agouti tabby, having virtually no stripes or bars. This is called ticked tabby, or agouti.

The ticked tabby pattern produces hairs that have distinct bands of color on them, breaking the tabby patterning up into a salt-and-pepper appearance. However, ghost striping or "barring" can often be seen on the legs, face and belly. Cats homozygous for the ticked allele (Ta / Ta) have less barring than cats hetrozygous for the ticked allele.

The ticked pattern is on a different gene locus than the mackerel and classic tabby patterns and is epistatic to the other patterns. If the ticked pattern gene is present, any other tabby pattern is masked. The mackeral and classic patterns are alleles. The mackerel pattern is dominant to the classic pattern. All of these patterns have been observed in random bred populations.

The mackerel tabby pattern is the most common, as the gene for this is dominant to the classic pattern. It has vertical, gently curving stripes on the side of the body. The stripes are thin and may be continuous or broken into bars and spots on the flanks and stomach. Often, an "M" shape appears on the forehead. This pattern is often called fishbone tabby.

Classic (or blotched) tabbies have a similar pattern on the head of the cat, but the body markings are very different. They have a whorled and swirled pattern with thicker stripes that make what are referred to as "butterfly" patterns on their shoulders. The legs and tail are more heavily barred and the pattern is variable with respect to the width of the bands.

The spotted tabby may not be actual pattern, but a modifier that breaks up the tabby markings. The stripes of the mackerel pattern are broken to the extent that they appear as spots, rather than stripes. The stripes of the classic pattern are broken into larger spots. Bothe large spot and small spot patterns can be seen in the Australian Mist breed.

Many tabbies have a distinct 'M' marking on their forehead, which is the mark of the true tabby. There are several legends about where this came from, including one that the Virgin Mary bestowed an M on a tabby's head because the cat helped keep the baby Jesus warm. There is another legend to explain the M, where the prophet Muhammad bestowed the marking upon his beloved cat's brow after it warned him of danger. According to the legend, the M remains today to remind us of Muhammad's blessings upon cats.[citation needed]

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