Tabby Cat Patterns

Most experts believe that this cat came from african and european wild cats which makes sense given their overall appearance.

Tabby cat patterns. People sometimes call the average domestic cat a tabby but tabby is not a cat breed it is actually the pattern of kitty s coat. A tabby is any domestic cat felis catus with a distinctive m shaped marking on their forehead stripes by their eyes and across their cheeks along their back and around their legs and tail and differing by tabby type characteristic striped dotted lined flecked banded or swirled patterns on the body neck shoulders sides flanks chest and abdomen. They are not a breed but rather a coloration variation that pops up in almost all breeds of cats. Other patterns started coming about as the result of selective breeding as well as unintended mutations.

Tabby is a coat pattern that features stripes dots lines or swirls with a distinctive m marking on the forehead. Tabby cats feature distinctive strips lines swirling patterns or dots with a wide variety of patterns and colors. Tabby is not a breed of cat but a set of distinguishing characteristics that can appear in many different breeds and colors. Known for their distinctive patterns capped by m shaped stripes on their foreheads they re instantly recognizable worldwide.

And it happens to be the most common of all the feline coat. A fifth includes tabby as part of another basic color pattern e g the patched tabby which may be a calico or tortoiseshell cat with tabby patches the latter is called a torbie. Why do tabby cats have an m on their forehead. The hybrid bengal sports a good example of this pattern as do ocicats.

The tabby cat originally had the pattern of the modern day mackerel variety. The banded background ground colour consists of hairs which are more than one colour along the hair shaft and is termed agouti. However many people still associate the term tabby with domestic cats that roam the streets and peek out of dumpsters. The marking is basically that of a color swirl present on the sides of the body of the cat.

Tabby refers to a coat pattern in cats which consists of dark swirls stripes spots superimposed on a lighter background of ticked banded fur. This pattern is so widely spread that you can find a lot of pedigreed tabby cat breeds. All tabbies have the same forehead markings. As per what is found in general most of us come across the following three patterns of tabby cats.

Classic swirl patterned tabby cats the swirling pattern on fur coats of the cats is the one that can be seen most commonly. The spotted tabby cat pattern is similar to the mackerel or classic pattern except the stripes or swirls are broken rather than continuous giving rise to a spotty pattern on the body. Grey tabby orange tabby and brown tabby. Spotted tabby bengal adult two ocicats with spotted tabby coats.