#Agouti

[amber-tortoiseshell]

I'm really confused about the solid amber cats- are they really not considered to be tabbies despite having tabby markings? I'm having a hard time wrapping my mind around that. Would you mind expanding upon that topic?

There are two possible uses of the word "tabby" (and I think both are equally valid and useful and have their places).

One is what you use: when a cat is striped. That's it. In this meaning "solid" ambers are tabbies, yes. This is what people mean when they say "all orange cats are tabbies". This is useful in everyday talk, but can get messy, think of smoke ghost tabbies or ticked tabbies.

The other is what i use on this blog: tabby is when a cat's agouti genotype is 'A_', solid is when it's 'aa'. Unfortunately this means both (genetically!) tabby and solid cats can have bafflingly not tabby- or solid-looking phenotypes and that can lead to confusion.

It's intuitive for black: a black tabby is striped, a solid black is solid. This is why the a allele is called "solid" - in reality it doesn't make the cat patternless per se, it increases the production of the black pigment in the "background" of the tabby pattern.

The only difference between the genetics of these colors is the agouti gene.

For red, genetically solid cats often look identical to genetically tabbies.

Kitten and adult photo of a cat born to a solid black and a solid tortie. He's 100% genetically solid red.

Solid tortoiseshells can show this difference very well:

The black parts of this cat reveal that it's genetically solid - but still have stripes on the red patches.

Amber is somewhere in the middle between red and black: solid cats aren't completely black, but still blacker than tabbies.

This is probably a direct consequence of how orange cats doesn't produce any black pigments whatsoever, while ambers do have some, just less than blacks, so being genetically solid has less effect on them.

Another photo of the tabby and solid amber cats from my previous post

In summary:

[odddogs]

da link broke so enjoy, i saved him before he was lost to the internet

[felinefractious]

🐱 Somali

📸 Meow Corp [Urban Wildcats]

🎨 Usual, Blue Agouti [Coat Colours]

[ratatism]

took this picture of circe in the sun today and her colouring is so beautiful, we need more love for agouti rats!!

[feather-bone]

[ID: an illustration of a brown tailless rodent facing to the left, standing with one paw slightly raised. It is surrounded by simple leaves and daisies on a blue background. End.]

Agouti. A diurnal, rodent from mainly Central and South America that grows up to around 10lbs. They eat fruits, seeds, roots, and leaves, primarily, and are swift runners and strong swimmers.

[critter-creature-or-beast]

Submitted for classification by @lily-blade

"Red-rumped agouti. Image source: Wikipedia"

By Alastair Rae from London, United Kingdom - Red-rumped Agouti, CC BY-SA 2.0

[bardicspirit]

3 pretty ladies 🐀🐀🐀

[ripinpipsmousery]

The mouse of the week is WHEEZER 2 for HAVING THE BIGGEST LITTER and ESTIMATED VALUE $186,000 DOLLARS

[mau-mao]

All Orange Cats Are Tabby Cats!

The "agouti" gene that gives cats their tabby pattern is also responsible for the red pigment gene that gives orange cats their color.

When the red pigment gene is expressed, the non-agouti gene doesn't work.

All orange cats are tabbies because they have the agouti gene, but not all tabbies are orange because they may not have the red pigment gene.

[snototter]

A Central American agouti (Dasyprocta punctata) in Colón, Panama

by marlin harms

[amber-tortoiseshell]

found a picture of a silver tabby(?) on pinterest that has a really dark mask, vaguely reminds me of charcoal. do you think theres anything genetically interesting going on here or is it just random??

Your intuition is spot on. This cat is a such a charcoal it's literally in the paper that described the charcoal (asipPb) allele for the first time:

"Charcoal colouration/pattern in the Bengal cat breed. Charcoal markings in a silver (Inhibitor; I-) (a), lynx point (b) and brown spotted tabby (c) Bengal cat. Note the dark face mask with white or nearly white lines around the eyes and very dark dorsal cape (c), compared to a non-charcoal silver (d), solid lynx point (e) and brown rosetted tabby (f) Bengal. (Pictures courtesy of Terra Sinclair, Pocket Bengals)"

[odddogs]

truly an odd thing, sent me on a bit of a rabbithole honestly, she looks like a deviantart oc

[felinefractious]

🐱 EG Chausie (2G) [AAFP Position Statement: Hybrid Cats]

📸 Elena Sheremetieva [Luxury Cats Cattery]

🎨 Blue Agouti

[unbridleddiscoveries]

Agouti

[critter-creature-or-beast]

By Charles J. Sharp - Own work, from Sharp Photography, CC BY-SA 4.0

[bardicspirit]

Ratblr, I’d like you to meet Sophie, Lettie and Honey. My chaos sisters 🐀🖤