Orange tabbies are some of the most well-known and widely loved cats in modern culture.Orange tabbies like Garfield, Healthcliff, Crookshanks, and Puss-in-Boots have played irreplaceable roles in our favorite stories and comics. Let’s take a look at some different color tabby cats! Orange tabby cat

Tabbies can also come in cream, lavender, cinnamon, chocolate, fawn, silver, and even black, with subtle stripes.Īll tabby cat colors have the same basic tabby markings, but not all show the stripe pattern to the same degree. This lightens both the main fur color and the tabby stripes. The dilute gene can also be applied to tabby cats. Tabbies come in every color that cats come in! The most common are orange, grey (also called blue), and brown. Calico mother cats, tortoiseshells, bicolor cats, black cats, and white cats can all give birth to tabby kittens. This is especially true if you have a pregnant mama cat and you don’t know who the father is (a common occurrence when fostering cats and kittens). A tabby kitten displays the markings of the tabby cat coat pattern, but it may be more difficult to distinguish.īecause cats can carry the agouti “A” gene without it being expressed, such as a cat with high-grade white spotting, it is possible for a cat who is not a tabby to have kittens who are tabbies. Even if the stripes have been bred to be difficult to see, the striping is still present due to the interactions between the genetics. Fun fact, orange cats always have tabby stripes. If a cat is carrying a non-agouti gene (“a”), then the cat will be solid colored UNLESS the cat is red. If a cat is carrying the agouti gene (“A”), some form of tabby will be visible. The gene responsible for the tabby cat pattern is called the agouti gene. Tabby kittens look just like tiny tabby cats! Sometimes, tabby markings are more apparent on black tabby kittens and fade as the kitten grows. Lighter colored chin and belly Tabby cats have characteristic facial markings such as the the M on their foreheads, and eyeliner markings Tabby Kittens.Banding along spine and around legs and tail.When someone says “tabby cat”, they are referring to a cat with the physical characteristics of this type of cat, as opposed to a solid-colored cat, a bicolor cat, a calico cat, or a cat with a different type of fur pattern. Tabby cat coat pattern examples: A mackerel tabby, a classic tabby, a spotted tabby, and a ticked tabby, as well as a torbie and a caliby Tabby Cat Meaning The stripes are a result of a pattern of ticked fur and non-ticked fur on the cat. Tabbies are unique due to their varied patterning and their charm! Table of ContentsĪ tabby cat is a cat that is expressing the “agouti” gene, which allows an ancestral striping pattern to be displayed on the cat’s fur. Cats with myriad tabby cat patterns also grace us with their presence: mackerel tabby cats, classic tabby cats, spotted tabby cats and more. There are orange tabby cats, grey tabby cats, brown tabby cats, and even other fur colors too. But they’re not all the same! Tabby cats come in so many tabby patterns and tabby colors.

Tabby cats are one of the most diverse and universally beloved types of cats. Please read our disclosure for more info. This post may contain affiliate links which will reward me monetarily or otherwise when you use them to make qualifying purchases.

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Ticked tabby