#he's a male dilute tortie

[littleplumptin]

Cider Bean❤️

[jumalanpelko]

Guard’s lighter markings are white, yes? Meaning that he is already genetically accurate!!

for Sugarpaws to have low white spotting, her white gene would look like W/S. W codes for no white, and S codes for white spotting, meaning that a cat with W/S will have low to medium amounts of white because it is not a simple dominance system with W and S.

For Guard’s Dad, he has high white. This is S/S. So Guard gets a W from Sugar, and an S from his dad, and he has W/S and has low white

Cat colour base (black based and red based) comes from chromosomes.

Sugarpaws would be o/o for a female cat who is completely black. Guard’s Dad is O/y for a male cat who is ginger.

Sugarpaws gives Guard her o, his dad gives him his y to make Guard male (assuming Guard is amab) and he can be black based!

Guard is grey, which is recessive. Because it is recessive, both parents can carry it without showing it!

So Sugar is D/d, and so is Guard’s Dad, and Guard can get a d from both and be dilute.

Sugar gives him a B for black (b is chocolate and b1 is cinnamon, B is dominant over both, b is dominant over b1. Sugarpaws could carry either a b, b1, or she could have another B, we don’t know) and thus,

Guard is grey with low white.

Sugarpaws is solid black, not a black tabby, and solid is recessive. A is tabby, a is solid.

Guard’s Dad could be either solid or a tabby as ginger cats are always striped to some degree, no matter their genes. But he has to have a little a.

so Sugar: a/a

Dad: ?/a (the ? means it’s an unknown gene)

they both give Guard an a and he stays solid!

Solid grey with low white :D

his ear tips might not be possible, I might he be wrong, but that’s okay

Thats some fucking insane cat math lmao i am so impressed people know all this

And Guards markings arent white, they are light blue/gray but could count as white for this

Also since accurate trans man guard would be tortie I keep imagining his canon design but with orange mustache lmao

[amber-tortoiseshell]

hihihihihi

i have a question that might be poorly worded and silly. and idk if this has been asked before or not. BUT

ok so yknow how white spotting/white on a cat's coat is basically just masking over a base color (red, black etc)

well. ok. if a cat had a solid white coat, could it be possible to tell what coat pattern the white is masking? like. is it possible to look at a solid white cat and look at other cats in its litter + its mother and father and make an educated guess like "oh this is a black classic tabby" or smth

like. for example

heres a poorly illustrated cat family 👍🏽 now. as you can see, the mother is a regular black tortoiseshell w a bit of white spotting, and the father is a diluted black (blue i think) mackerel tabby with some white

and then theres. a solid white kitten. and a dilute red classic tabby kitten with a bit of white

Well, it depends a lot on the specific case, but we often can figure out a lot, especially if the cat has offspring.

But first of all. Full white is dominant; for a white kitten, you need a white parent. Two colored cats will never make a full white kit like in your example. If it's based on a real litter, either momma cat had another paramour or the white kitten is actually pointed, just too young for to color to come in. (Actually a red-based female is also impossible from this pairing, so blue tabby really can't be the father of these kits. Their actual father would be a white cat masking red.)

A few examples when we can figure things out:

Kingfisher of Merlin has a tortie tabby bicolor mother and two colored kits: a tortie with white and a black with white. As the mother of these kits is solid black without white, both the orange and the white spotting comes from him, so he masks red (tabby) with white. As his mother is a proven homozygote for white spotting, all of her white kittens are full white carrying white spotting. Kingfisher and Umami's white male kittens however mask black without white, as they got their x-linked black allele and no white spotting from their mother, and the dominant white allele from their father.

In genotypes:

Rinoa Heartilly: A_ Oo wsws

Kingfisher: _a O- Wws

Sonett: aa Oo wsw

Viggen: aa o- wsw

PhoeniX and Quantum: _a o- Ww

Duchess has both an orange and a black son, meaning she can pass both alleles: she masks tortoiseshell.

[bastart13]

The big one! At least one cat of each generation is the "one who has kits"

Redtail is still a male tortie, only he's trans. Also since Spottedleaf is described with brown and gold, I thought making her a tabby tortie would make sense

Ironically despite this tree being named after Sorreltail... I couldn't make her a tortie. Whitestorm's family doesn't have any ginger and Willowpelt isn't ginger either. So, reddish brown tabby for her

Even more ironically, Cinderheart becomes more like canon Cinderpelt than my version as a result

Cherryfall, Honeyfur, Sorrelstripe, Hollytuft, and Flywhisker become torties. Sorrelstripe is especially funny because Lionblaze and Cinderheart are both dilute longhairs so their children all have to be dilute longhairs. My compromise was a fawn-cream tortie because at least that's brown. Fernsong couldn't be ginger so he's also fawn

[goldenflowerceo]

have any warrior cats headcannons you'd like to share? :3 /genq, curious

ooooo i'm gonna talk abt a few design ones i have that i've been meaning to share!!

so ofc the tiger clones look like. tigerstar. but i do like to dream about going all in with the tiger motif for his descendents. tigerclaw looks like a pseudo-melanistic tiger, swiftpaw looks like a white tiger (he's a tiger son to me), brambleclaw looks like a regular tiger, tawnypelt is a tortie of a pseudo-melanistic and golden tiger, hawkfrost looks like a pseudo-melanistic white tiger, mothwing looks like a golden tiger, tadpole looks a pseudo-melanistic tiger, tigerheart looks like a regular tiger, dawnpelt looks like a golden tiger, and flametail also looks like a golden tiger. i just think it's fun :3

sparkpelt is not orange. she is not red either. she is this vibrant golden-yellow and i will not be taking criticism. think like a yellow highlighter.

dilute yellow/gray yellowfang... but also rattier. i agree a LOT with runn1ngn0se’s post about her hygiene. give her mats and bottom canines that stick out like boar tusks. also i think we should design her with the trope where her brows are so thick they completely cover her eyes. those peepers only come out during times of great emotion.

oh!! not design-related, but willowpelt and whitestorm are a QPR to me. aroace woman and her gay best friend lol

also !!! i have to mention frostfur here... i think she kinda looks like the burmilla cat breed, with the sort of "frosty" gray top coloring. also i can see her as both trans female and also trans male. slowly blorboifying her in my brain... another thing to add. i think as bluestar starts to lose her faith in starclan and trust in her clanmates, she keeps slipping up and calling frostfur "snowfur" ... [keels over and dies]

i don't like the briarjay ship, unless it's a QPR or jayfeather is trans fem. briarlight is a beautiful butch lesbian

ohh!!! final headcanon i'll mention here, and it's something i want to draw one day so i can fully explain: ever since i picked up the first book back in fifth grade, i’ve only been able to picture redtail as a ruddy, brick red tabby with dark, blackish stripes and a wonderfully thick tail. he's also gained a mullet in my mind over time. i've never been able to see him as a tortoiseshell, lol

[cinderella-ish]

This is a VERY SILLY idea I got earlier this week and it took over my brain so please enjoy the Fruits Basket characters as cats! (Bonus fun: see if you can guess who they are before scrolling down!)

Mabudachi Trio + Kureno

Hatori - I went back and forth with him on whether he'd be a black cat or a Siamese cat, but his eyes are so striking! It was hard to find photos of black cats with naturally blue eyes (I'm sure they exist!)

Shigure - a Russian Blue, obviously

Ayame - clearly an elegant white long-hair

Kureno - a derpy and sad-looking chocolate tortoiseshell

Yuki and the Student Council

Yuki is the silver tabby who looks like he regrets all his life choices lol

Kakeru is the very silly tabby in the top left

Machi is the shy-looking dilute tortie in the top right

Kimi is the white long-haired Persian cat

Nao is the talkative (demanding) almost-still-a-kitten tabby

Kyo, Tohru, and their families

we already know what Kyo looks like as a cat lol but Tohru is the ragdoll cat next to him in the upper right (because she's OBVIOUSLY a ragdoll!)

Kazuma is the brown-ish Maine coon. Dignified but still a cat!

Kyoko is the light ginger and white tabby (did you know female oranges are fairly rare?)

Katsuya is a handsome adult black cat

Grandpa Honda is a sweet gray tabby

Kyo & Tohru's Friends

Arisa is a calico (did you know most calicos are female? I feel like that would fit Arisa's feminism)

Hiroshi and Yusuke are twin tuxedo cats! (Right?!?!?)

Saki is a gorgeous long-haired black cat ofc, and Megumi is her miniature

Youngest Zodiacs

Haru would obviously be a black and white cat. I think he'd have a unique marking, too, like a mustache, or a spot shaped like a heart.

Momiji is a blond German Rex (which is a breed I just learned exists!)

Kisa would be a Bengal kitten because she'd definitely look like a wildcat

Hiro would be a little baby tabby

Other Zodiacs

Akito would be a slightly intimidating black and white cat

Ritsu would be a rare male calico (and an exceptionally beautiful one, too!)

Kagura would be a very cute Russian Blue

Rin would be a skittish black cat who's actually a sweetie once she gets used to you, if you're her person

Everyone Else + Bonus Cat!

Mine would be a long-haired tuxedo cat, obvs

I thought about Mayu as a dilute tabby, but I like her as a tortie tbh

Mitsuru is an anxious white and gray cat

THE CUTIE IN THE BOTTOM LEFT IS MY CAT!!! HE'S SIXTEEN AND SO SNUGGLY AND I LOVE HIM!!! HERE HE IS TOTALLY ZONKED OUT BECAUSE THE SUN WAS OUT!!!!!

[identifyingcatsinposts]

Chimera! Head and left side is black and right side of body is tortoiseshell black mackerel tabby; he has low white spotting (bi/tricolor pattern is tuxedo without gloves with a blaze). He is a Persian/Munchkin (Minuet).

I’ve seen a lot of people in the replies and reblogs not understanding his genetic makeup. I’ll do my best to answer some questions about Bruce and chimerism. Putting a cut in because it’s long, but keep reading to learn something new!

A chimera cat has multiple sets of genetic material in different spots on its body. If the material came from a fertilized ovum that underwent a somatic mutation, it’s mosaicism; if from two fertilized ova that fused into a single fetus, it’s chimerism. For the purposes of this explanation, I’m lumping both mosaics and true chimeras under “chimera”, like most non-geneticists do, but there is a difference.

Not all chimeras are easy or even possible to tell apart from non-chimeras, but those that are can be identified because only part of their body displays a gene that always displays over the entire body. Here’s an example: the easiest kind of chimera to spot is dilute/non-dilute. If a cat is part black and part blue with clear lines between the colors, that cat is without question a chimera. Chimeras can be reasonably identified if they express any mutually exclusive genes in patches: dilute & non-dilute, black base & different black base, tabby & self, pointed & non-pointed, shorthair & longhair, etc. though in order to be verified, genetic testing needs to be done. Most chimeras probably go unnoticed because the genetic differences between the ova simply weren’t significant enough to appear, or they appeared in a manner consistent with a different gene, making it seem that they were that gene instead. This is what happens to most red and black female chimeras. If a cat contains fused genetic material that is red & black or red/black/tortie & tortie and appears female, the cat will be perceived as a tortoiseshell, even if neither DNA set is O/o (tortoiseshell).

Bruce is clearly a true chimera, although he does need to be genetically tested to be certain. Him being tricolor and male could in a vacuum make him a XXY male calico with an extremely odd pattern, but the tortoiseshell side contains obvious patches of black tabby, which is impossible in conjunction with patches of solid black. Mosaicism tends to be a) far more localized than Bruce’s colors allow for and b) generally only causes a single change (while Bruce is, at the absolute bare minimum number of genetic changes, going from A/a -> a/a and O/o -> o/o) and so although it isn’t impossible to have two massive somatic mutations covering the exact same areas, he’s almost certainly a true chimera.

Here’s a couple corrections for misconceptions I saw in the rbs and on other websites:

A stray cat having red and black makes for a great reason to call her a good girl instead of a good boy if you don’t have the wherewithal to check the equipment (since the vast majority of torties are female), but not only can chimeras be any sex, non-chimera male torties exist too! The most common type are XXY males, who are intersex and infertile but perfectly healthy.

Not only CAN chimeras not have the face split — and not only DO most chimeras not have the face split — but most cats with a face split (where one half is one color and the other another) are not chimeras at all! If the split is in the colors and patterns typical to a tortie or torbie, it’s an uncommon but perfectly regular tortoiseshell or calico pattern. Also, if the face is half white, especially if the rest of the cat has a decently high amount of white, that’s probably not a chimera either. Having heterochromia doesn’t make a cat a chimera either, even with the face split.

Chimerism isn’t inherently an intersex trait — it only causes a cat to be genetically of two sexes if a true chimera’s fused ova are different sexes or (on occasion) if a mosaic’s somatic mutation occurs in the genital region. Whether that counts as intersex depends on your definition: most chimeras will have genitals that work exactly like non-chimeras, and cats don’t really have obvious secondary sexual characteristics to be affected by their chimerism. Bruce here is presumably a regular tomcat where it counts based on the original post, but some of his skin and fur is female.

Unlike most tortoiseshell male cats, Bruce is probably not infertile. Most tortoiseshell males have Kleinfelter’s syndrome, an intersex condition which does sterilize them. Chimeras are usually perfectly capable of breeding (with rare exceptions and the exceptions all cats are subject to). Despite that fact, Bruce would breed as though he was a normal black cat: even though he has orange and tabby patches, he will not be able to pass the orange or tabby gene onto kittens because his reproductive organs will only carry gametes derived from the ovum that lent him his black side.

(He probably should not be bred, but not because of his chimerism. This isn’t the point of the post, but I feel obligated to note that the Persian breed standard prioritizes several harmful conditions and Munchkin dwarfism is by nature homozygous lethal and heterozygous extremely harmful, making Minuets exceptionally cruel to intentionally breed.)

Other well-known chimera cats include Dawntreader Texas Calboy, Pretty Boy Floid, and Skye Blue Humphrey Bogart. “Venus the Chimera Cat” is the modern-day best-known cat under the name “chimera”, but she could easily be an unusually patterned tortoiseshell (she hasn’t been genetically tested and her pattern is plausible enough to disqualify her from the “possible chimera” status that a cat can achieve if all other possibilities have been ruled out) and she isn’t a good face for chimera cats as a whole because of the misconceptions split-faced tortoiseshells have spread about what chimeras look like. Another popular possible chimera is Quimera, who is also an unconfirmed split-face calico, but she’s more likely to be a possible chimera, not because of her face or eyes, but because of patches of what resembles black tabby on her body despite her solid black facial pattern.

Disclaimer on this post especially: I am not a geneticist. I am a hobbyist that happens to know a lot about cats. If you know any scientific information that contradicts me, please do send me your sources and I will correct myself.

[warriorcatpelts]

Could Redtail father Sandstorm?

I wanted to start of this blog with a hard question: Can Redtail father Sandstorm?

A long time ago, it was hypothesized that Redtail was Sandstorm's father. At some point, it was made pseudo-canon and added to the old fandom wiki. Here, I plan to take the question seriously: Can a male tortoiseshell tom produce a female red cat?

The answer is yes, but how?

There is only one way to produce a tortoiseshell tom: two fused embryos.

Tortie and calico are due to an interaction of two genes; it is not a single recessive gene and it isn't lethal to male embryos. Because most tortie males are chimeras (2 fused embryos), and not XXY, they are actually fertile although they only pass on either black or orange, but not both.

Now that we have that out of the way, we can make a choice: Does Redtail breed like a black or brown tom or does he breed like a ginger?

Well, the answer to this question requires answering another question: Is Sandstorm a true cream she-cat, pale ginger, or is she some other color?

Then, we can look at this chart to determine who Redtail has to mate with in order to produce a cat like Sandstorm.

REDtail is a RED tom

If Sandstorm is a pale ginger, then the answer has to be a red tom.

The only viable options are a female tortoiseshell and a female red she-cat. I took some liberties with potential mates based on the Hunters' absolutely hilarious description of cat coats.

Potential mates could include:

Goldenflower - a yellow tabby, aka double-dilute red aka apricot she-cat

Rosetail- a gray tabby with "pink" tail, aka a gray tortoiseshell she-cat

Now, I personally want it to be Rosetail, mostly because we don't see much of her and because I find it funny for similar suffixes to mate. But whichever one you prefer is up to you--if you decide to go this route.

Redtail Might Be Black (or Brown)

The fun thing about Hunter's descriptions and cat coats is that you can take some liberties with how you treat them genetically.

Sandstorm could be a pale ginger, aka cream, or she could be fawn, as mentioned in little hungry warrior's video on Firestar's Family Tree. This makes more sense for Sandstorm because she goes on to produce Leafpool, who is a brown tabby. Two ginger cats cannot produce a brown tabby, so it's reasonable to assume Sandstorm is fawn--just as it can be reasonable to assume that a 'dark red' cat is actually cinnamon.

This means that Redtail has to be a black, chocolate, or cinnamon tortoiseshell--which all get treated the same when it comes to breeding. The only requirement is that Redtail's mate has to be non-ginger, a pale color--which includes gray--and has to be non-tortoiseshell.

This gives us the following options:

Willowpelt - pale gray tabby she-cat

Brindleface - gray tabby she-cat

In Conclusion

Redtail could mate with any she-cat that isn't a dark color to produce Sandstorm.

See a picture of basic coat colors below the cut:

[amber-tortoiseshell]

ooh would you mind another kitten calculating question? its one i've wondered for a while: my cat is an orange female from a litter with 2 gingers, 1 tortie and 2 greys; their mother was my cousin's cat who's a dilute tortoiseshell. can it be assumed that 1) their father was black (or grey?) and 2) my kitty's 2 grey siblings are both male?

No, the father was red. (At least your cat's father definitely; cat litters sometimes have multiple fathers.)

An orange female needs to inherit a red allele from both parents, so she must have a ginger or tortie mother and a ginger father. If your cat isn't cream but non-dilute red, dilute being recessive means two dilutes can't make a non-dilute, so the father couldn't be cream: he's red.

Blue, cream and red tabby kittens. Is your cat more pastel or more vivid ginger?

But yes, if we assume one father for all five kits, this means the greys must be males.

[nattikay]

And here we have the genetic addendum to my Thunder redesign post.

(restating for clarity that this post is assuming that Toothless is indeed the last Night Fury aka there are no other “secret populations” hiding somewhere)

So, can bicolor Furies persist in the dragon population for 1000+ years across however-many generations? Well, let’s take a look.

Given that the Night Lights display patches of both black and white scales, we can assume that Fury colors work somewhat similarly to those of domestic cats.

For those who don’t know, cats have two main color genes: black and orange (which can then be modified by other genes into a variety of other colors; for example, the dilution gene turns black into blue and orange into creme--but we don’t need to worry about that here).

The black and orange genes are equally dominant, so when both are present in a single individual, they create a sort of patchwork pattern of both colors on the coat, aka tortoiseshells (or calicos if the cat also happens to have the white spotting gene but again we don’t need to go into that here).

The same thing seems to be happening with the Night Lights, though unlike cats whose main color genes are located on the X chromosome and are therefore sex-linked (torties and calicos are almost exclusively female with the very rare exception of XXY males, who are usually sterile), dragon color genes appear to be on a different chromosome, so both males and females are equally able to inherit both.

Here’s a chart showing this “co-dominance” over a few generations of Toothless’s lineage interbreeding with Light Furies (yes I know Ruffrunner isn’t on there, but it was easier to organize the chart with just two; he has the same night/light distribution as his siblings anyways):

As you can see, any bicolor Night Light, no matter how far removed from Toothless himself, still has a 50% chance of passing on a black gene to their offspring, hence continuing bicolor patterning!

And that’s not all. Let’s say that after several generations there are two Night Lights. They both retain the black gene, but enough time has passed that they are not too closely related to each other, let’s say idk eighth cousins or something. Let’s say they become mates and...

WOW! We can get fully black Furies again! Cool!

But is this technically a Night Fury? Well...there’s more to a “Night Fury” than just black scales, so it’s gonna be a little more complicated than that.

Let’s go back to our first-generation Night Lights, the direct offspring of Toothless and Nubless. Because Toothless can only contribute Night Fury genes and Nubless can only contribute Light Fury genes, we know that all of the og Night Lights have one copy of each species’ gene in their genotype. We can then look at their phenotype (outward appearance) to determine which ones are dominant and which are recessive.

Taking this approach, it appears that Night Fury back spikes are dominant over the Light Fury back fin. So what does that mean for future Night Lights?

Any Night Light who possesses the Back Spikes gene will have at least a 50% chance of passing it to their offspring when breeding with a pure Light Fury. Once enough generations have passed for Night Lights to start interbreeding with each other, the chance for a pair of heterozygous (Sf) Night Lights to have back-spiked offspring will be 75%. Two Sf Night Lights will also have a 25% of producing a homozygous (SS) dragon, which in turn will pass the spikes to 100% of its offspring even when breeding with a pure Light Fury.

So Back Spikes will be less common than Back Fin despite being dominant, at least for the first several generations, simply because it’ll be a handful of Sf Night Lights breeding with an abundance of ff Light Furies; however, as long as the spiked individuals continue to breed the trait should be able to remain in the gene pool for a decent amount of time, and will eventually becoming more common as it becomes possible for Sf’s to interbreed with each other.

But now let’s look at the recessive traits. While our og Night Lights have spikes on their backs, they also have fins on their legs, so we can assume that Leg Spikes are recessive to Leg Fins. Let’s revisit our chart again.

Because our heterozygous Night Lights are breeding with dominant-homozygous Light Furies, the Leg Spikes trait will completely disappear from the phenotype for the next several generations...

....but not necessarily from the genotype. While none of the earlier Night Lights will display Leg Spikes, they can still carry the gene. I’ve marked these carriers in blue. Fs Night Lights would have a 50% chance of producing another Fs Night Light when breeding with FF Light Furies.

Which, in turn, brings us back to that time when Night Lights can start breeding with each other. FF+Fs cannot produce ss...but Fs+Fs can, albeit only with a 25% chance, and we could get our first phenotype Leg Spikes in ages!

So clearly all Night Fury traits have the ability to persist through the generations, be they a constant part of the population or something hidden that crops back up later. Does that mean we could eventually get another proper Night Fury?

Yes, it is possible to get a fully black Fury again even though it is codominant with white.

Yes, it is possible to keep Back Spikes and other dominant traits within the lineage for generations to come.

Yes, it is possible for Leg Spikes and other recessive traits to reappear eventually.

But how likely is it for all these traits to just so happen to coincide on the same dragon? Alas, probably not very. Possible, yes, but very very rare/unlikely.

So, here’s what I think the future of the Fury population would look like:

Pure Light Furies and White Night Lights would be the most common. Bicolor Night Lights are also moderately common, and Black Night Lights are rarer but not unheard of. Physical Night Fury traits are sprinkled throughout Night Lights of all colors--some have extra nubs, some have back spikes, some have leg spikes...many have none and a rare few have all.

And maybe, just maybe...one particularly lucky dragon just so happens to look a whole lot like a Night Fury.

[yotenotes]

them ^^

i like to view jayfeather as the shortest of them. hes a male tortie (intersex) and i like to imagine his eyes are kinda squinted shut and only really open slightly when hes surprised. hed get his more dilute genes from sandstorm. if he wasnt diluted, he would look a lot more like a leafcrow lovechild. big ears too, which he can hear real good out of

hollyleaf is kinda average height. shes 100% crows kid, minus the green eyes. shes trans mtf, and i like to think shes much closer to lion than she is to jay. out of all three shes also the fastest.

lionblaze like canon is the biggest out of them all. he takes after leafpool a LOT in appearance. softer features, smaller ears, fluffy, and hes brown !! his coat colour specifically is what really helped sell the whole "this is brambleclaws kit" lie. also made tigerstar buy into the fact lion is his "son."

[slugswarriorsdesigns]

how would the genetics work for duchess and her kittens from The Aristocats?

So I had to do a ton of research for this, ANYWAYS

Duchess is a purebred Turkish angora, apparently. I wanted to make her a silver shaded based on the lighter belly, but apparently she is supposed to be fully white. So let's go with that. Also, blue eyes. Big hint that it's probably W (dominant white) that's showing up here, and not white spotting.

Marie is also described as a purebred Turkish Angora. She is the only female kitten, but she is also W. So we still don't know how the dad looks, except its apparently a Turkish Angora too. And the good news is that they can be several colors, even without dominant white.

Toulouse is orange, so red. No white spotting. I'd make the joke that he's ticked because he has no visible stripes but that's just animation-friendliness. So a male red kitten, which means Duchess is red. Also, his lack of white spotting implies that either the dad wasn't white at all, or he got real lucky and Duchess and her former mate were both Ww (dominant white + no white) and he got the non-white gene from both.

Berlioz brings us a bigger problem; he is a dark grey. Not a black cat! Dark gray. The lighter stomach I am going to interpret as him being smoke. Remember, smoke is dominant and is a gene that hangs around Angora cats. This also means Duchess is a tortie, as she had a black based and a red based kitten.

So; Duchess is a tortie covered by dominant white. She may be dilute, or carry it. She may be smoke, or not. If Duchess isn't smoke, then the dad has to be. But that is literally ALL we can get from this.

TL;DR White cats are a pain in the ass but at least we know she is a tortie beneath the white

[sonneillonv]

Maybe New Babies?

Aspen really needs feline companionship. He loves me to death, but I don’t fit on his cat tree to cuddle him in sunbeams, I don’t get zoomies and I’m a bit old to be chasing him around the house, and I don’t groom him with my tongue (he has doubts about the efficacy of hands). Since Midnight passed, I’m looking into getting new kitties, so I’ve reviewed several shelters in town. Here are some candidates!

This little girl’s name is Rem! I love that she just invited herself into some family’s house and was like “Mkay you have a cat now”. I understand why they were like “LOLno” and I’m glad they brought her to a good shelter. I met her the other day and I really liked her personality - she reminds me of my previous cat, Persephone, who was my absolute bestie for 17 years. She’s 6mo-1year.

Rem is one of the absolute sweetest little kitties.  This little girl is really smart too!  She was found outdoors but found a nice family and kept coming in through their doggy door.  This proved to be problematic.  She also had an old injury where she had bone exposed on her tail.   After arriving at the Hermitage, she was spayed and she had the injured part of her tail amputated.  She's unsure of her roommates so we're not 100% sure whether she's okay with other cats yet or not. She really loves humans though and would love to have her own home to live in instead of the shelter.

I’m taking my mom to see her today! The same shelter also has a bumper crop of the most ADORABLE dilute orange mackerel tabbies, and they have one with little cream toe-socks who just won my heart with his sweet personality and calm nature. He’s around 3mo old.

When he’s grown, I anticipate he’ll have some truly magnificent tail floof. I’ll consider him, but I want to avoid having two male cats in the house in case they decide to get in a piss war 🙄 Also, I have an orange boy cat already. Don’t tell me there’s no such thing as too many orange boy cats. 😣 I’m trying to avoid addiction.

They also had this SUPER TINY (like, 6wks old) Tortie baby. I don’t want her, but I’m showing her to you guys because I know y’all will appreciate her FREAKING ADORABLE bandit markings!

Look at that mask! What a tiny girl! She could have fit in my hand!

This beautiful little Tabbico (or Caliby if you prefer) is named Soba! I sent an email asking if I can meet her, but haven’t heard back yet. She’s 3mo old.

This little beauty is an independent, yet sweet princess with a cuddle streak. Most of the day, Soba enjoys snuggling up in a small, dark space to nap, but will gladly follow you around asking for pets when the mood strikes. She is quite shy in new situations, but given time to acclimate, she warms up to be an absolute sweetheart! She is especially cuddly at night and is an avid biscuit maker.

Since she is a little jumpy and shy, she will absolutely need time to adjust to new people, places, and pets. She does love to play, especially with mouse toys and other cats! Given slow introductions, Soba would do well in a home and would likely get along well with dogs and busy children if given a slow introduction.

I adore her coloring and her little toe socks and I hope her foster responds!

[tom-and-queen-genetics]

Okay, so. I feel like we're just kinda matching each other's crazy here. This is great.

I took the original post you found, and ran it through Google translate. Unhelpful, said "the more cats the better" (or similar phrase, I don't remember).

Then I mapped out kittens. Here is what I labelled each kitten as:

Rows starting from the back, and like the hands of a clock. I really wanted the clock thing to work even though there were 13 kittens, so we get 6 and 6.5. It's fine. Anyway, this is what you refer back to for this next figure.

I circled markings in green as to why I made certain decisions. I believe every kitten to be accounted for based on markings. (For example I believe kitten I to be kitten 10 because both kittens have white toes and it's reasonable to assume we just can't see the white face markings in the clock photo). It's a bit of a guessing game, but I'm reasonably sure. Then we have kitten 9, who is circled in red. Who are you? Where did you come from?

Anyway, I'm going to go through a list of reasons why these guys aren't full and maybe aren't siblings at all.

1. Too fecking many. Record I've seen of one litter was 13. If we hadn't left a heavily pregnant cat alone and came back the next day to 14 cats in that same kennel, I wouldn't have believed me either. A more normal number would be like... 1-6. I'd believe up to about 9. 12 or 13? Too many.

2. They're different ages. Look at their sizes. They're all roughly 5-7 months old, where the males start being 1-4 pounds larger than the females. Worst time to attempt to age a lone kitten. But usually, when they hit 5-7 months and you have mixed litters, this is where you can really tell that some are older than others by a few weeks. So, either 1, 2, 4, 9, 11, 12, and maybe 3, 7, and 8 are all girls, or we have 2-3 distinct ages. Litter 1, 2, 4, 9, 11, 12. Litter 3, 7, 8. And litter 5, 6, 6.5, 10. Litter sizes of 3, 4, and 6 make much more sense.

3. Where are our torties. You can't have blacks and reds in the same litter without torties. Kitten 9 is maybe a tortie, but I would believe smoke as well. And I stuck that one in the same litter as that weird potentially-silver kitten. That's the same gene. But geez... it really looks more red... maybe one tortie. But not the 3-4 we should have.

4. White spotting. 5/13 are not white spotted. Weirder things have happened, for sure, but it's still weird to hit the odds that often. 3/13 high white is pretty good odds, and then the low white will be 5/13, messed up by the no white. Plausible.

5. Dilute, if we're saying that the weird kitten is dilute, would have the correct ratio for two het dilute. 3/13 is roughly 1/4. However, there's only one solid- reds don't show. Feck. Uhm. Oh and they're all various white spotting so I can't use the chins. And Mr. No White Spotting (6.5-B) is a tabby because he does have the faded chin. Feck. Welp. Oh and kitten 9 is solid. Definitely. So... okay ignore this point.

Huh. Well.

Okay, so. Jump aboard this train with me for a moment. We are going to pretend that they are full siblings. We have two low white spotting parents. We have a tortie x red (all blacks are boys, half reds are boys). We have two het dilute and het solid parents. We have no pointing (I think it's too uniform across the body. You've done this a bit more, you can dispute me on this if you think we've got points, I'm just really not seeing any).

Now I'm going to jump off the deep end and you're along for the ride.

Ignoring how rare it would be. Both parents could carry smoke/silver (same gene but just solid/tabby). Look at this photo (source: https://silvershorthairs.com/tag/ticked-tabby/)

Could our weird kitten (11-C) be a ticked silver tabby? It would be really freaking weird but... maybe?

Also, kitten 9 and kitten 2-A... possible smoke? I know, I'm reaching a little, but I googled a couple cream smokes and they look pretty similar, and we really can't see the black at all. Kitten 9... could be a tortie, but it would be high black for a tortie, and I'm wondering if the reddish tone we're seeing is the hair parting and letting us see through to the white underneath, on a really terrible camera. It's a reach. I know.

Anyway, that leaves us with a torbie with low white spotting carrying dilute, solid, and smoke/silver, and a red tabby with low white spotting carrying dilute, solid, and smoke/silver. And some insanely unlucky tortie odds, and a massive litter.

I'm not doing tabby types. Fuck that. I- well. I could... No. No. I am stepping away from the kittens.

Edit: I lied, smoke/silver is dominant. Give me 3-5 business days to rework this. Ugh.

Hello friend! Got another question for you, and this time I have photos!

So I started a cat genetics sideblog (as one does), and I ran into this one:

(Post here with my thoughts: https://www.tumblr.com/tom-and-queen-genetics/784732692679917568/i-highly-doubt-all-of-the-babies-are-from-one-mom)

What's your verdict from the little we can see? Silver? Fever coat? Or am I totally wrong that something's up with this one, and they're just a blue?

Hm... my first thought was silver, but then I went to look at all the kittens, and I wonder if it's a colorpoint? Black tabby (seal lynx) point, specifically.

It seems to have one flame point sibling (top row left kitten w/light blue collar), and I also see one kit that could potentially be a flame point w/high white (the one you labeled as "dominant white(?)"), so it's not impossible. It looks a little weird for a lynx point, but young colorpoint kittens haven't developed their "full" colors yet, so that could be why.

I did some sleuthing and found another image of at least some of the same kittens (same collars, fur colors, etc.) here:

It's hard to tell, but some of them do look like they could be colorpoints!

The pale creamy one wearing a light teal collar on the upper right of the circle looks like the kitten that I thought might have been a flame point in the previous picture, but now I'm wondering if it's more of a blue or cream point... or who knows, maybe a tortie tabby point!

The white & cream kitten on the bottom of the circle looks more like a cream tabby (non-point) in this picture than in the other, but who knows lol.

And then there's also the grayish brown tabby kitten on the upper left part of the circle, which could potentially be our confusion kitten! And... honestly this doesn't make it any clearer to me lmao.

We know it's black-based, and I'm gonna vote non-dilute (though it could just be one of them darker blues), but that's about it. Colorpoint could theoretically work here, but the color darkness seems too uniform across the body in the pic I found (no visible points), so I'm gonna say maybe not colorpoint. But the collar seems to be a bit different, so who knows, it could be a different kitten altogether!

My final vote is either black silver mackerel tabby, or blue mackerel tabby, or maybe a tabby point, but I have very little confidence in those guesses lol

(the other picture)

[mann-lee-dickson69420yolo]

okay but like.. you know that myth/folklore/belief/ihonestly dont know how to catagorise this.. BUT THE THING WHERE PEOPLE SAY YOUR BIRTHMARKS ARE PLACES YOU DIED FROM? imagine if the clan leaders start to have markings that show their death blows? what if the reason why male torties/calicos exist isnt JUST because they're trans, (not denying this headcannon, just saying maybe this works too) but because EVERY MULTI COLOURED CAT IS A POSSIBLE REINCARNATION WITH THE MARKINGS OF THEIR PAST DEATHS AND GENETICALLY IMPOSSIBLE WHITE SPOTS ON A CALICO IS WHERE THEIR STARFORM DIED THE DILUTED COATS ARE FADED/FORGOTTEN DEATHS

so for example, firestar whould have a marking on his head where scourge smashed it in. in starclan he'd have a new marking around his muzzle to show how he suffocated in the smoke, add extra tabby like markings for his wounds. mapleshade when she died had a dark/or/red marking on her white mane like neck (perhaps a warning from starclan about her fate?)

MAYBE in clan cat theology theres a myth that a tiger got his stripes from great battles in the shadows from when they where banned to the darkness for a moon and an unwillingness to let the fight go so ealily, killed them one by one, only to be reincatnated/brought back to life by starclan having mercy on them. spots of a leopard where the bruising both internal and externat from their fights, too swift and agile to let claws cut too deeply in them atg the begining, but the internal damage was deadly and impactful all the same. lionclan... i got nothing, lions are boring and overrated anyways FiTe Me =P

ALSO IMAGINE THE EDGY DARKLORD HISSY BRO CONOTATIONS THIS HAS FOR TABY COLOURPOINT CATS WHO UNDOUBTABLY HAVE STRIPES ON THEIR FORARMS/CAT WRISTS AAAAAAAA

[mallowstep]

Warrior shrewpaw x Squirrelflight hypekits????

yeah sure.

aight, shrewpaw is a brown tom, so let's go with...

bb1/Dd/ii/wbwb/aa/tt/Spsp/tmtb/Ll/wsws/o/Ccb

(he's allowed to carry sepia because that's my best guess and spiderleg's genetics.)

and for squirrelflight, well,

Bb1/Dd/ii/wbwb/aa/tt/spsp/tmtb/ll/Wsws/OO/CC

the only big thing of note here is that she can't carry spotted tabby or ticked tabby, because on ginger cats, some tabby markings will show through. i could argue she's a ticked tabby which makes her look solid, but looking at all her canon art, as well as my own personal opinion about cats with stripy legs (they're good), i've chosen this. it doesn't really matter because all their kits will be solid, but. anyway.

our options for each locus:

Bb, Bb1 (black); bb1 (chocolate); b1b1 (cinnamon)

DD, Dd (nondilute); dd (dilute

ii (nonsilver)

wbwb (widebanding)

aa (nontabby)

tt (nonticked tabby)

Spsp (spotted tabby); spsp (nonspotted tabby)

tmtm, tmtb (mackerel tabby); tbtb (classic tabby)

Ll (short hair); ll (long hair)

Wsws (<50% white); wsws (no white)

Oo (tortie, she-cat); O (ginger, tom)

CC, Ccs (nonalbino)

so all of their female kits will be torties, and all of their male kits will be solid red. otherwise, though, you have your usual free rein to pick one option on each line to build your own kit. examples:

k1: brown tortoiseshell she-cat (bb1/Dd/ii/wbwb/aa/tt/Spsp/tmtb/Ll/wsws/Oo/CC)

k2: fawn calico she-cat with long fur (b1b1/dd/ii/wbwb/aa/tt/Spsp/tbtb/ll/Wsws/Oo/CC)

k3: red and white tom with long fur (Bb/Dd/ii/wbwb/aa/tt/Spsp/tmtb/ll/Wsws/O/Ccb)

k4: cinnamon and red tortoiseshell she-cat (b1b1/DD/ii/wbwb/aa/tt/Spsp/tmtm/Ll/wsws/Oo/Ccb)

as for photos...

k1: chocolate tortoiseshell

k2: fawn calico bicolour

k3: red bicolour

k4: cinnamon tortoiseshell