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wc-wild-rewrite · 7 months

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The Clans and Pelts

This will be a worldbuilding post detailing the various pelt colors and markings, and how common they are in each clan. White markings show up in every clan, so i'm not counting those.

Lets get started rather simply, with tabby types;

Mackerel

The regular straight-lined tabby, most commonly found in Thunderclan and Shadowclan.

Classic

The swirl tabbies, almost only found in Riverclan. It is rare to have other clans with classic tabby markings. If a riverclan cat is a tabby, their a classic tabby. Outside-born cars are the only exception.

Broken Mackerel

A mackerel tabby with broken up stripes. The norm in Shadowclan tabbies, uncommon elsewhere

Spotted

Regular spots, not leopard spots. Most common in Riverclan, but generally uncommon across the board. More-so a loner or kittypet trait than anything.

Marbled, Braided, Broken Braided, and Rosetted

Marbled tabbies are broken classic tabbies, Braided and Broken Braided are mackerels, and Rosetted are a spotted variety. All bengal genetics, meaning generally uncommon across the clans. Except for rosetted, which is a common Riverclan marking when they arent classic.

Ticked

Comes in classic or mackerel ticked, they only have striping on their legs, tails, and faces. Common in Windclan, actively bred for, even.

Now, for the pelt colors

Brown

Pure brown, as in a tabbyless brown, is common in Windclan. Also found in Riverclan, particularly in toms.

Brown tabbys are very common in Shadowclan, particularly in toms. Brown tabbies are also found in Thunderclan, but they don't have brown cats very often across the board

Windclan brown tends to be a lighter shade, Riverclan brown is more red, Shadowclan brown is more black or grey-tinted, and Thunderclan brown leans on the darker but colorful side.

Black

Thunderclan and Shadowclan love black cats, for both practicality and appeareance. More common in Shadowclan, though.

Riverclan and Windclan however, do not like black cats, so their not very common. This is very unfortunate for Crowfeather's family. When Windclan does have it, though, it tends to be more very-very-dark-grey and not fully black.

Grey

Lighter greys are found in Riverclan and Windclan, stone-gray particularly in Riverclan.

Mid to dark greys are found in Thunderclan, but very dark greys are found most commonly in Shadowclan.

White

Pure white is not preferred in any clan, for practicality or appearance. Its primarily considered a kittypet trait, to be completely white-furred. However, Windclan minds the least, as they like high white on cats. They still prefer more bicolor than white, though.

Not common in any other clan

Tortoishell

The most common pattern for Shadowclan mollys. This is likely due to the large loner and rogue-born population within the clan. In Shadowclan, non-white torties are preferred over calicos or torties with white

Thunderclan prefers calicos, Windclan doesnt like either, and Riverclan usually gets dilute torties (grey and cream)

Red

Despite the prevalence of torties in Shadowclan, red is actually a fairly uncommon color across the clans. However, lighter oranges can ocassionally pop up in Windclan, and darker reds can be found in the nonclan-born of Shadowclan. Still typically considered a kittypet trait.

Cream

The dilute of Red, but far more common. Mostly found in Windclan and Riverclan.

I'm going to ignore the genetic pelt colors of Lilac, Fawn, and Taupe as their basically the same thing as cream. To me, at least.

Blue

Yes, im counting this seperately from Grey. Of course, most common in Riverclan, but not really found anywhere else.

Colorpoints

As this is a breed-specific pelt, their only found in kittypets and those with non-clan heritage. Oddly enough, common in Windclan, depsite their claims of being pure bred. Flamepoint is the word for a red colorpoint, like Gorseflame.

#warrior cats #wc #wc rewrite #warrior cats rewrite #warrior cat rewrite #windclan #riverclan #shadowclan #thunderclan #worldbuilding

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climbdraws · 1 year

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Hello I found my cat in basically an alley but he is the most beautiful coat color I have seen on a random street cat but I can't figure out exactly what he is! The base of his fur strands are white while the tips are grey, but I can't find the ticked chart that I want. You can see at the base of his tail he has a 'middle part' where the white fur shows 😂 thank you you're the only one who knows cat genetics that I know and google doesn't get it 😭😭 (his name is Morpheus also ft. Coraline and Tristan)

hiii what a cute baby!!

they’re a silver black mackerel tabby - Silver because the hair shafts are banded with white (aka the white undercoat you see), Black because of the pigment of the stripes, and Mackerel because of the broken striped pattern along the sides

here’s an example of what I mean by banding on the hair shaft & a silver Turkish angora tabby

#someone out there can give a better explanation #I’ve forgotten a lot of the actual science and just know A + B = C basically lol #it’s been 2 long #afragilesenseofanarchy

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tchaikovsgay · 10 months

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Alright you said cat genetics, you're getting cat genetics. I will try to keep this interesting, but it is going to get technical at points.

I'm going to assume you know dominant and recessive gene terminology, chromosomes, Punnet squares and the like. I'm not going to take this far past high school biology.

First off, fur colors: there's two genes for this, black and orange. The black fur gene has 3 options: dominant B, which makes a pitch-black cat; recessive b, which is a chocolatey brown color, and even more recessive b', which has a light-brown cinnamon color (B>b>b' with complete dominance, so the higher-ranking ones completely cover the lower ones; a cat with Bb genes will be black, bb' would be chocolate brown, etc.) Chocolate brown and cinnamon coats are rare enough to usually only be seen in purebreds.

On top of that, there's the orange gene O, which is basically an on-off switch for whether the cat will be orange. If you have O you're orange, if you have o you're not orange. The orange gene COVERS the black gene. The trick is, this gene is on the X chromosome, so female cats have 2 copies while male cats only have one. So male cats can only be orange or not-orange, while females can be tortoiseshell if they get one copy of each gene: Oo. (orange genes are co-dominant, so the effects of them blend) This is why 99% of calico and tortoiseshell cats are female; to be genetically calico or tortoiseshell a male must have a mutation where they have XXY chromosomes.

And on top of THAT you have the white-fur gene, which is complete dominant W>Ws>w. White is just a lack of pigment in the hair, so the white-fur gene trumps all other fur colors by simply removing the pigment. A white cat could have literally anything else genetically under the white. W, the dominant gene, is a full-color white cat, often with blue eyes (which comes from losing pigment in the retinas). It also has a chance of making the cat deaf if the lack of pigment reaches the inner ear. Ws is a white-spotting gene; it causes part but not all of the cat to lose pigment, so this is how you get some-color-and-white cats. Funny enough, having two Ws genes (WsWs) as opposed to just one (Wsw) often leads to the cat having more white spotting, but it's a spectrum and not always reliable. w is the recessive and means no white spotting at all, so the orange and black genes show through.

What about gray cats? That's the dilute gene: D/d. Dilute basically fades out the color so black becomes gray, brown becomes light brown, orange becomes cream, etc. D is the dominant one and means no dilution: black stays black, orange stays orange. To get a gray/cream/whatever dilute cat, you have to have double recessive dd.

Now tabby markings. There are a few genes for this. To determine if the cat is tabby at all, you have the agouti gene: A/a. A is dominant and means yes tabby markings. aa is recessive and means no tabby, solid colors. EXCEPT for orange cats, because for some reason we don't yet understand, having the orange gene automatically turns on the pigment structure that causes tabby markings even WITHOUT the agouti gene! So an aa orange cat will still be tabby. (Tortoiseshell cats will have tabby markings on the orange parts only.) The theory is that there is a base tabby pattern encoded somewhere else in the cat's DNA and both the agouti and orange genes function to sort of amplify it so it's visible. In fact, if you look at a solid black or gray cat in the sun, you can sometimes see the tabby markings on the head or legs, colloquially referred to as ghost tabby markings.

Type of tabby markings is another gene: mackeral tabby (stripes) is dominant over classic tabby (cinnamon roll-style swirlies). There's also ticked tabby and spotted tabby, which are two entirely different genes that modify the first one to make very faint markings or spots respectively. Having fun yet?

Last thing I'll talk about is colorpoint, or the Siamese gene. It's actually a variation of albinism that ties color to heat, so cold areas of the body get darker. This is why Siamese cats have dark tails, paws, and ears, while their main body is light. There are actually a lot of different types of colorpoint, and it can change throughout a cat's life. Here's a diagram:

How do I know all this? I was obsessed with Warrior Cats as a kid, and anybody who's read those books know they are completely inaccurate to actual cat genetics. So I used to make my own little genetic trees with an online family tree maker to see what color the cats would come out if they actually followed real-life rules. The results were often way off from what the books said. I made a whole bunch of these trees with different starting cats, restrictions, and such (like whether or not purebred genes were allowed in wild cats) to see what would happen. I would do this for fun for hours as a kid, because there is nothing abnormal at all going on with my brain. Here's an example of what one looked like; you can see the genetic terms on the left.

That's it, holy crap that was long, if you actually read this far thank you so much. If for some reason you want more cat genetics, I recommend this: http://messybeast.com/catarchive.htm The site can be tough to navigate at times, but it has a lot of good information.

THIS IS ONE OF MY FAVORITE INFODUMPS IVE EVER READ. thank you for taking the time to tell me about cat genetics 🥺👉👈 I'm fucking obsessed with the ghost tabby markings tidbit because my little grey ghost cat has faint tabby markings!!

they used to be almost invisible but shes 15 now and theyve lightened a lot with age

#prommy I'm gonna get around to infodumping in return #i am stressed and scatterbrained today but i will manage

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newwarriorsocworldobsession · 1 year

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FAMILY TREE, EVERYONE!

Alright, so, we're also gonna talk genetics here. This is gonna get lengthy so buckle up. I posted all the videos on making this darn thing on my TikTok, but one cannot explain genetics enough in five 10 minutes videos. Or at least I can't, and the family tree that shows how the original founders of my five clans get to the point of Floodclan's current leadership was the best (and longest) family tree to show how weird cat genetics can get! Also gonna get into some lore on this that I had no time to add in the videos.

Do note: I will not be talking about fur length.

Starting with Thicketstar, she's a chocolate ticked tabby with no white spotting. Both of her youngest children, Embercloud and Sunnystar, have at most 50% white spotting and are calicos.

Embercloud is a chocolate caliby (a tabby calico) while Sunnystar is a carmelized blue calico (fun fact a carmelized diluted red/cream is an 'apricot' for those who didn't know.)

So, basic cats colors to look at here alone:

Black is most dominant (dilute is blue)

Chocolate is recessive to Black (dilute is lilac)

Cinnamon is recessive to Chocolate (dilute is fawn)

Red is sex-linked (dilute is cream). Red cats pretty much are a 'hey, let's not let the eumelanin(what's responsible for Black, chocolate, and cinnamon) show and let the phaeomelanin (what's responsible for red) shine on through!'

So if a tom inherits the black gene thanks to having a chocolate dad and a black calico mom, but also gets that one X chromosome that's red from mom, that's going to be a red tom than, if they have a calico daughter, could still pass on that black gene and make that daughter a black calico. Probably a better way to explain it, but that's how I'm going to.

So then, starting with Thicketstar, she's a chocolate ticked tabby with no white spotting. Both of her youngest children, Embercloud and Sunnystar, have at most 50% white spotting and are calicos.

Embercloud is a chocolate caliby (a tabby calico) while Sunnystar is a carmelized blue solid calico (fun fact a carmelized diluted red/cream is an 'apricot' for those who didn't know.)

So already, the previous explanation is in play.

Sunnystar being a caramelized blue means both Thicketstar and Sunnystar's father carried both the dilute gene so that Sunnystar could be blue, but also the caramel trait. The caramel trait is also recessive like dilute. In order for Sunny to be blue, means her red tom dad who also has a lot of white spotting would have been a black or blue tom if he didn't have that special red 'X.'

Sunnystar is mates with Moonstar, a seal Bengal spotted lynx colorpoint. This means Moonstar has the colorpoint gene, obviously, but is also genetically a black cat. Since he's a tabby though, which is dominant to Sunnystar's solid, that means if we assume he carries a recessive solid gene, it's a 50-50 chance for their kids to be solids.

Which is true! Their daughter Blueclaw is a solid blue! Moonstar doesn't have the caramel gene, so Blueclaw isn't caramelized like Sunnystar. HOWEVER, because Moonstar has the gene that causes the Bengal pattern and passed that down to his kits, Blueclaw's solid coat does have muted markings regardless. (Bengals are weird and this won't be the first time it messes with this family tree)

Sunnystar's and Moonstar's other daughter Leopardheart isn't dilute and has inherited Sunnystar's whitespotting, though it is a lesser amount. Since Leopardheart is a tabby, she displays the Bengal pattern Moonstar passed on down. Both Blueclaw and Leopardheart are genetically black like both Sunnystar and Moonstar are.

Back to Embercloud.

They have a son, Sleekstride, who is a chocolate mink tabby with a small amount of whitespotting. In order for Sleekstride to be any type of colorpoint, Embercloud has to have a recessive colorpoint gene, along with Sleekstride's father. For future reference, we will assume that Sleekstride's father was either a cinnamon or carried cinnamon.

Sleekstride then has Palestar, a fawn ticked lynx colorpoint with no white. This is why we must assume that Sleekstride's father is either cinnamon or carried it, along with Sleekstride's mate. The cinnamon cannot be from Embercloud, because as we discussed earlier, Embercloud's father would have been a red cat, hiding a black coat, and would have had to carry chocolate in order for her to have chocolate like her mother Ticketstar. We can also assume Sleekstride's mate either was a colorpoint or also carried it.

Palestar's mate is Fallowspark, a black tabby with little white spotting. However, Fallowspark carries chocolate! How do we know this?

Because none of their children are cinnamon/fawn and one of them, Fernrunner, is a chocolate-ticked tabby.

We also know both Palestar and Fallowspark carry solid because of Shadowrapid is a black solid tom with small white spotting and Fallowspark carries dilute, colorpoint and both carry the caramel trait because Creekstar is a caramelized blue lynx colorpoint and their daughter Mothstar is a seal lynx colorpoint.

We good? Good.

Creekstar has a total of six mates, but only had kits with three, so let's just look at those.

He and his first mate Heavyheart, a black twilight charcoal tabby have Doespot, a lilac charcoal tabby. This means, since Creekstar would be carrying cinnamon from Palestar, Heavyheart is carrying chocolate and dilute.

Creekstar's next mate Amberstream is a fawn tortie. They have OWlcry, a solid blue mink, which means Amberstream carries a sort of colorpoint. Since both Creekstar and Amberstream are diluted, this means Owlcry has to be diluted as well. There are no other options.

Creekstar's last mate TImbercall is a black tabby, and they have Lakepaw, who is a blue tabby.

Heavyheart and Shadowrapid hook up after Creekstar dumped her and they have Fernpelt, a black midnight charcoal tabby with a small amount of white.

Fernpelt then fathers Lionstar, who is a solid fawn with the same amount of white spotting. Now, we know that since Shadowrapid is a solid, Fernpelt would be a carrier. We also know that it's a 50-50 chance that Fernpelt would have also been a carrier for both the cinnamon trait and dilute trait, has both would have been inherited from Shadowrapid being a carrier after inheriting those traits from his own mother Palestar.

In case anyone needs a sum up of that:

Palestar( dilute cinnamon) --> Shadowrapid (carriers cinnamon and dilute) --> Fernpelt (could carrier cinnamon and dilute) --> Lionstar (dilute cinnamon)

Good? Good.

Lionstar fathers Marshrunner, who does not have white spotting and is a solid chocolate tom. Since cinnamon is the most recessive of the non-red colors, this makes sense and points to Lioncry's mate being either a carrier of chocolate or chocolate herself.

Marshrunner then fathers Finchstar, who is a solid chocolate tortoiseshell, having no white. Since Finchstar is a tortoiseshell, her mother is either a tortie herself or a red she-cat, in which said the mother could only provide red 'Xs'.

We know that Finchstar's mate would have to be a red tom since she then has a daughter Fireflight, who is a red colorpoint. Now, regardless if a cat is solid or tabby, red will always display stripes. Genetically, however, Fireflight is a solid.

We do know her mate has to be a tabby with whitespotting because then her son Gorsestar is a red tabby colorpoint with whitespotting. However the color of Gorsestar's father does not matter in this case, as since Fireflight is red, then so too must be Gorsestar.

Gorsestar first is mates with Ravencry, a solid black tuxedo. Since Ravencry is genetically black, their son Tigercall then is also such, but he's a tabby like Gorsestar. He gets whitespotting from either Gorsestar or Ravencry, but not both since he's a tuxedo as well.

Tigercall then mates with non-clan cat Jane, a solid chocolate bicolor. However Tigercall still passes on the black gene onto their daughter Shadowfoot, and this time both parents give a white spotting gene to their child, as Shadowfoot has a massive amount of white on her.

Shadowfoot has a kit with Snowmask, a blue tabby bicolor. They have Junipercloud, who also turns out to be a blue bicolor. This means the dilute trait Shadowfoot is a carrier for is either came from Jane or managed to be passed on secretly through Gorsestar's family since Lionstar. We will see it could be either later.

Now, Snowmask had a previous mate, Riverbelly, who was a seal lynx colorpoint.

Both of their sons Darkpelt and Loonwing are black tabbies, but Loonwing inherits Snowmask's white spotting and neither of them is colorpoints. Loonwing is mates with Hornetsting, a cream tabby she-cat with whitespotting, making any son they have red or cream and all daughter calicos.

Now let's go back to Gorsestar.

Gorsestar later mates with Spottedstream, a gray tortie.We now know that Gorsestar does indeed carry a dilute gene because their Stormfrost is a dilute/blue tortie colorpoint. We already know Gorsestar carries solid from his mother and paired with solid tortie Spottestream, this lets Stormfrost be the solid she is as well.

Stormfrost hooks up with two toms, Riverthorn (a seal point) and Lioncry (a chocolate wideband tabby). Wideband makes a cat's coat, aside from stripes, look golden.

Stormfrost and Riverthorn can only produce more colorpoints. Riverthorn also carried dilute as evidenced by Falconstar being a blue colorpoint. Their daughter Mudmask is a seal colorpoint just like her father.

Stormfrost's son in the same litter. Redwing, could be either Riverthorn's or Lioncry's son. Redwing is a colorpoint, as since he's red, he'd still show having stripes regardless if he was a tabby or a solid. Lioncry's wideband gene is a dominant trait, but it'd also be reasonable that Lioncry could have a recessive gene where a kit of his wouldn't get that trait.

Mudmask is mates with Bluetalon, a blue tabby. Their kits will more than likely be black or blue, it is a 50-50 chance since Mudmask would carry dilute from her mother Stormfrost.

Falconstar is mates with Flyflight, a black smoke. If the two of them could have kits, it'd be a 50-50 chance of their kits being smokes or regular solids. However, both Falconstar and Flyflight are cis toms, so not possible.

So now, there is only one mystery in this whole family tree. Who is Redwing's dad? If you want to make a guess, go on ahead and give a reason.

And if anyone wants me to put down another family tree from my characters on here or the canon warrior cats (I might regret that) the ask box is always open. Also, for those of you who made it this far, thank you. I appreciate you reading through this whole lengthy post.

#family tree #warrior cats #warriors worldingbuilding #warriors designs #warriors ocs #warrior cats family tree

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sparrowminder · 1 year

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hi!! i wanted to ask, on your cat generator over on perchance, you said that it's using your most up to date polygene models, and i was wondering where i could find those if you've uploaded them anywhere? 👀

I am actually going to be doing quite the overhaul of my polygene models soon because I'm bothering to do the actual math behind it (which apparently nobody else has really done before). I am running into some trouble because in many ways they are behaving opposite of how I intuitively thought they would.

However, no matter how you generate the numbers, all of my polygene models follow the formula of bigger number = more thing, smaller number = less thing. Most of the scales are 1-6, but wide band is 1-10. These numbers don't have any significance, they just ended up being right for the amount of granularity I wanted. They are not simulating a polygenic system with any particular number of genes, we are assuming that there are way too many genes to bother with individually.

When writing the genetic codes, I give them a gene symbol followed by a number. I coined a lot of them, but these gene symbols are free for everyone to use with whatever models you want to represent them with.

Pig - Coat pigmentation, affecting solid cats and stripes of black-based tabbies. Represents concentration of eumelanin.

Ruf - Rufousing. Effects redness of red cats and base color of black-based tabbies.

Wb - Wide band. Covers the whole scale of possibilities, from dark to light to golden. 7 and above are varieties of golden.

Sp - Spotted. Turns mackerel tabbies into broken mackerel or spotted.

Tm - Ticked modifier. Removes stripes on ticked tabbies, creating the proper agouti pattern at high levels.

Bm - Bengal modifier, the same one that uses a single gene on the advanced calculator.

Wm - White modifier. Effects amount of white on white spotted cats, going from no visible white to bicolor on Ws- cats, and bicolor to nearly full white on WsWs cats.

P - Eye pigmentation. Makes eyes darker/oranger.

R - Eye refraction. Makes eyes bluer.

#i should really finish that perchance generator #polygenes

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slugswarriorsdesigns · 2 years

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Hello! I had a genetics-related question. Would a red/cream cat with two copies of the Silver Inhibitor Gene (or just high expression of the Silver gene) "look" mostly silver with red striping? Or would the non-striped parts of the fur simply have the illusion of being more shimmery/lighter? I've been scouring the Internet trying to find a decent example of what I'm talking about, but unfortunately any combination of "silver" and "tabby" tends to bring up pictures of silver black tabbies.

Yes, with a high enough degree of silver you'll get a silver cat with a slightly cream hue and "red" (more diluted to borderline cream tbh) stripes. In red cats with both silver and wideband this effect is even more prevalent. If you have a silver + red + wideband + ticked you get a "Cameo" which only has a slight reddish hue on the back and top of the head

#snail noises

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amber-tortoiseshell · 11 months

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Cat color genes masterpost

I copied all my descriptions from the cat color gene tournament here, with pictures and all. I often type out the genotypes, so this is a guide to what each letter means. Under the cut because it's very long.

Disclaimer: Sometimes I don't use the most common designations of a gene or an allele, and I'd like to apologize to everyone who's bothered by this. I have a very good reason for it: I like it better my way.

Genetics guide

Agouti (agouti signaling protein gene, ASIP): this gene determines whether the individual hairs will be banded or not.

dominant allele: A - banded hairs, tabby cat (wild type)

recessive allele: a - no bands, solid cat (variant)

A_ means if there's already an A allele, the other one can be either A or a.

A homozygous recessive cat with wild type alleles on every other gene will be solid black. Combined with other allele variants the a allele can produce other solid colors, different types of smokes and several more.

Actually there are more "secret" alleles for this gene: the agouti alleles of the asian leopard cat and other wild feline species. In certain hybrid breeds, most notably bengals, there's even a special coloration called charcoal born from the combination of the domestic cat's solid and the asian leopard cat's agouti allele.

Ticked (dickkopf wnt signaling pathway inhibitor 4, DKK4): this gene determines if there is any full-colored hairs, or only banded.

dominant allele(s - researchers found at least two): Ti - only banded hairs, ticked tabby cat (variant)

recessive allele: ti - some hairs don't have bands, "patterned" tabby cat (wild type)

If this is the only gene with variant allele, we'll have a black ticked tabby [black tabbies are also called brown, and other, mostly breed-specific names]. Ticked tabbies are possible in every color.

Nonagouti covers up the tickedness (this is called recessive epistasis): we won't see what a solid cat's genotype is on this gene. (Except when other genes make it possible. But that's biology for you.)

Spotted (?): this hypothetic gene can break up the tabby pattern's stripes into spots.

dominant allele: Sp - spotted tabby cat (variant)

recessive allele: sp - striped tabby cat (wild type)

Alone the Sp allele makes a black (brown ect) spotted tabby cat; of course, in combinations with other variant alleles, it can produce a wide variety of different colored spotted tabbies.

Both a and Ti covers up the spotted gene: its effect normally only visible on a cat with the A_ titi genotype.

Mackerel [i use the name mackerel since every other gene here is named after the dominant allele] (transmembrane aminopeptidase Q, Taqpep): this gene determines the type of the tabby pattern.

Blotched and classic are synonym terms.

dominant allele: TMc - narrow vertical lines, mackerel tabby cat (wild type)

recessive allele: tbl - wide, swirling lines, blotched or classic tabby cat (variant)

If every other gene is wild type except this, we'll have a black blotched tabby cat, but of course the tbl allele can produce lots of different colored classic tabbies.

All of the previously mentioned genes are able to nullify the effect of this one, so a mackerel or a blotched tabby must have A_ titi spsp genotype.

Additional annoyed remark: Despite the name, the so-called classic pattern is actually both the newer and the less common worldwide. My only guess for why it's named like that: it's the more common one in England. Well, thanks. (That's why I actually prefer the name blotched over classic.)

Brown (tyrosinase-related protein-1, TYRP1): this gene determines the quantity of the functional eumelanin.

dominant allele: B - full pigment production, black cat (wild type)

"middle" allele: b - less pigment, chocolate cat (variant)

recessive allele: bl- even less pigment, cinnamon cat (variant)

Order of dominance: B > b > bl

If every other allele is wild type except this, we'll have a chocolate or cinnamon mackerel tabby cat. (On the picture the cinnamon cat is spotted rather than striped, because i couldn't find a decent mackerel. So sad.) Chocolate and cinnamon cats are possible in every pattern.

Dilute (melanophilin, MLPH): this gene determines the distribution of the pigments.

dominant allele: D - even pigment distribution, dark cat (wild type)

recessive allele: d - clumped, uneven pigment distribution, diluted cat (variant)

black -> blue

chocolate -> lilac

cinnamon -> fawn

In these pictures the difference isn't that striking between the black and the blue mackerel tabby, but if you look up at the header, in solid cats it's much more pronounced.

For further comparison of undiluted and diluted color pairs on one picture (to eliminate differences in lightening):

black vs blue and red vs cream

Every possible color and pattern can be diluted (with the only exception of white).

Orange (?): this yet unidentified gene determines the type of the most prominent pigment: eumelanin on pheomelanin.

allele: O - mainly pheomelanin, red-based cat (variant)

allele: o - mainly eumelanin, black-based cat (wild type)

This gene is special in two related ways: first, it's located on the X chromosome, which means tomcats only have one allele; second, the alleles are codominant - if a cat carries both of them, it'll show both phenotypes: this is how we get tortoiseshell cats. This explains why almost all tortoiseshell cats are females - every tortie needs two different X chromosomes.

Combined with other variant alleles every possible color and pattern can occure as tortoiseshell, but the O allele is epistatic over a lot of genes: for example agouti (the phenotype of every orange cat is tabby, even the genetically solid ones) and brown (since eumelanin is mostly absent thus can't change - the genotypes OO B_, OO b_and OO blbl all mean red cat).

The dilute version of red is called cream.

The dilution level is always the same in the colors of a tortoiseshell: the undiluted black, chocolate and cinnamon is paired with red, the diluted blue, lilac and fawn are paired with cream.

White (receptor tyrosine kinase, KIT): this gene determines the size of the area the pigment producing cells (the melanocytes) reach.

dominant allele: W - basically no melanocytes, white cat (variant)

allele(s): ws - limited area is covered, white-spotted cat (variant)

allele: w - all of the body is covered by the melanocytes, full-colored cat (wild type)

recessive allele: wg - only the paws remain white, gloved cat (variant)

Order of dominance: W > ws = w > wg

Since the gloving allele is kind of specific to the breed, I used a birman cat to illustrate it.

Lots of alleles here! Actually I'm not sure what's the most accepted opinion about them, but since these variant are all mapped to KIT, I considered them alleles.

If every other gene shows the wild type except for this, we'll have a white, or a white-spotted black mackerel tabby cat, but thanks to the ws allele(s) every color and pattern can be combined with white patches. However, the W allele is epistatic over every other gene: if a cat has one or two copies of W, it will be white regardless everything else.

ws is interesting: it has an additive effect, a cat with the wsws genotype will have more white than a cat with only one copy of it.

wg is fully recessive: the gloved phenotype only present if the cat's genotype is wgwg.

Color restriction (tyrosinase, TYR): mutations on this gene will result in temperature-sensitivity in the pigment production, the cats will be lighter on the warm and darker on the cooler areas of their bodies.

dominant allele: C - regular pigment production, full colored cat (wild type)

allele: cb - moderately reduced pigment production: burmese color restriction, sepia cat (variant)

allele: cm - reduced pigment production, bangkok color restriction, mocha cat (variant)

allele: cs - highly reduced pigment production: siamese color restriction, pointed cat (variant)

recessive allele: c - no pigment production, albino cat (variant)

Dominance order: C > cb = cm = cs > c

Now this group is a lot. Not only five different alleles (mocha was found relatively recently in Thailand), but the middle three are all intermediate with each other meaning that actually we have eight different phenotypes (illustration from messybeast; full color and albino are absent):

I used solid cats for illustration, because in the thai breed (the cats i used belong to this) they are often preferred over tabbies, so it's easier to find pictures; also, it's much more simple to compare them.

(Photos from The Thai Cat Center and Bangkok Mocha Cat, and Pangur from @pangur-and-grim as an albino cat)

Please note that all of these varieties are very changeable; the pictures (especially those of the heterozygotes) are far from representing all cats carrying the respective genotypes.

Alone these variants makes some type of a black (seal) mackerel tabby point cat, but every type of color restriction can occure together with all possible colors and patterns.

***The color restriction gene won the Cat Color Gene Tournament!***

Inhibitor (?): this unidentified gene reduces the pheomelanin production, thus removes the warm tones of the fur (the hairs have white-black banding instead of yellow-black).

dominant allele: I - reduced pheomelanin, cooler toned cat (variant)

recessive allele: i - normal pheomelanin, warmer toned cat (wild type)

If every other allele is wild type except for this, we'll have a black silver mackerel tabby cat. Combined with other alleles it can produce lots of different silver (tabby) and smoke (solid) varieties.

Wide band (?): This hypothetic gene makes the yellow bands on the agouti hairs wider, resulting in a lighter, yellowish pelt. Based on the width of the pale bands we can differentiate between golden (middle band width) and shaded (maximal band width, color is pushed up into the tip).

dominant allele: Wb - reduced area of eumelanin, warmer toned cat (variant)

recessive allele: wb - normal area of eumelanin, cooler toned cat (wild type)

Golden is quite a mess; right now there is one identified gene (found first in siberians), but persians and many more breeds must have different gene(s), based on the interaction with the inhibitor gene (siberian golden + silver = bimetallic, persian golden + silver = silver shaded or chinchilla), and the inheritance patterns (the siberian alleles are recessive, while persian golden appears to be dominant). Since lots of breeds allow golden, and sometimes it can be found even in stray cats, I say who knows what genes and alleles are out there! This is all a hardly understood, very exciting and currently researched area.

If every other gene stays wild type except for this, we'll have a black golden mackerel tabby or a black golden shaded cat. Combined with other alleles it can produce lots of different golden and silver varieties.

Low-grade white (?): Again, hypothetic gene(s). Even with the extreme variability of the white spotting allele(s), the existence of some independently inherited genes is strongly suspected. Their effects most commonly manifest as a white locket: a small white patch on the chest or the belly, and/or a white tail tip. I'm not sure if there is any consensus whether these are more likely to be recessive or dominant alleles.

Dilute modifier (?): This unidentified gene changes the color of a diluted cat, the coloration becomes more brownish.

dominant allele: Dm - (variant)

recessive allele: dm - (wild type)

blue, lilac, fawn -> caramel

cream -> apricot

I put here a cat in all three diluted colors to compare them with the caramel tabby. It's hard to spot the differences, isn't it?

Since this is a dilute modifier, the D allele covers it, and we can only see its effect on cats with dd genotype.

It can be found only in a few breeds: orientals (including related breeds), burmese, different rexes. To our current knowledge, of course.

Extension (melanocortin 1 receptor, MC1R): This gene replaces eumelanin with pheomelanin resulting in a yellowish or reddish furred cat. The change often happens gradually during the first years of the cat's life.

dominant allele: E - eumelanin remains, black adjacent cat (wild type)

recessive alleles: e, er, ec - pheomelanin takes over, yellow/red adjacent cat: amber, russet or serdolik (variant)

All three recessive variants are new mutations found recently in different breeds: the color amber in the 1990s in norwegian forest cats, the color russet in 2007 in burmese, and the color carnelian or serdolik in 2018 in kurilian bobtails (at least that's the first mention). We don't know anything about their interactions, or their effects on cats outside of their respective breeds.

The gene only effects eumelanin, so the O allele is epistatic over the it. However, because of the properties of the overpowering pheomelanin, every e allele is epistatic over agouti, so the tabby patterns will show up on aa cats as well.

Wide band (serine peptidase, CORIN): This hypothetic gene makes the yellow bands on the agouti hairs wider, resulting in a lighter, yellowish pelt.

dominant allele: Wb - eumelanin on normal sized area, darker cat (wild type)

recessive alleles: wbSIB, wbeSIB, wbBRI - eumelanin on reduced area, lighter cat (variant)

Ohhh, citizens of tumblr, we're really in it now. So. In the moment, we have, I believe, three mutations found on this gene: the sunshine (wbSIB) and extreme sunshine (wbeSIB) in the siberian breed, and the copper (wbBRI) in british cats. (I only show the sunshine and the copper here.) The novelty of these mutations means that the breeders still often call them simply golden instead of the new names, so it's difficult to find reliable data. Further complicating the situation, most likely both breeds have more wide band gene(s) beyond CORIN, and especially the copper cat above is the result of the combination of several wb genes.

Karpati (?): This unidentified gene makes the extremeties (face, ears, legs, tail) white kinda like a reverse colorpoint cat, and causes a roaning effect: scatters white hairs everywhere on the body.

dominant allele: K - whited extremities, karpati cat (variant)

recessive alleles: k - normal pigmant production, full colored cat (wild type)

Karpati seems to show intermediate inheritance with significantly more white on a homozygous then a heterozygote cat. This gene is studied for a very short time, and mostly on heterozygotes since they are much more common. The cats appearence changes during their life and also with the seasons: they born very similar to a fever coated kitten but with white ears, then to the end of their first year they almost completely lose the white (at least the heterozygous cats - the homozygotes become darker but still keep strange white patterns), then slowly gain it back as they age.

The karpati mutation is present in the stray cat population in middle-east Europe (including Hungary where I live, wahoo! and indeed, I can regularly see one or two karpaties in facebook adoptions groups and such). It's also introduced to some established breeds (LaPerm, Sphynx ect) and the creation of its own breed also began under the Transylvanian name.

#genetics #cats #macska #cat genetics

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felinefractious · 6 months

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What is charcoal in terms of cat fur? Color? Pattern?

I guess I would have to classify charcoal as a pattern because it’s on the agouti (tabby) loci. It’s recessive to regular agouti (Apb/A) but dominant to solid/self (Apb/a) and of course will display when there’s two copies present (Apb/Apb).

Black Tortoiseshell Charcoal (left) and Chocolate Charcoal (right) cats from Маша Иванова.

Brown (Black-based) Charcoal from FairySavage.

Blue Charcoal from Monika Bengals.

An interesting exception is red cats, in which charcoal doesn’t display even if genetically present. I would assume the same is true for cream, but I haven’t seen any cream “charcoal’s” and am unable to verify.

This cat from Маша Иванова is genetically charcoal but appears as your typical red tabby, note the lack of distinct “zorro” mask.

At the same time charcoal can (in theory) be paired with any tabby pattern, it’s not actually tied to rosettes or the bengal modifier gene which creates them.

Black Charcoal Ticked Tabby from vom Grutholz.

Charcoal is a bengal color/pattern, this is the only breed it “naturally” occurs in to my knowledge - but there are breeds who are using outcross matings to introduce it into other breeds with… some very cool results, as you can see!

So far I’ve seen this occur predominantly with Oriental Shorthairs and at least 1 breeder working with charcoal in British Shorthairs and Selkirk Rexes.

Traipse Charcoal Bengals wrote a good article on charcoal, in particular the different types (Apb/a vs Apb/Apb) and their colloquial names.

I meant to answer this earlier but while looking for references I learned that Sand Cat x DSH hybrids are apparently A Thing and needed to stop and take a long moment to be disappointed with people for creating that.

#asks #anonymous #cat genetics

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magpiecrust · 2 years

Text

TFP Warrior Cats au (Allegiances)

Inspired by @spinecorset 's art of the Decepticon leaders as cats.

I either need to do some genderbending or come up with some sort of a justification for why there's literally one female character in each clan, because it's not genetically viable.

I also have no idea what to do with the human characters or how the plot would actually work. Maybe there was originally one group, like The Ancients, but it shattered for some reason, resulting in Pathclan and Flightclan. However it's still set in the Nevada desert.

I also have no idea what to do with the relics, Unicron, dak energon, Allspark, and the human characters (the only thing i can think for them to be is rat colonies). I have an extremely rough draft of a six-"book" arc i wrote, but i haven't watched TFP in years so i definitely forgot some events.

Please help me with the remaining names, so writing will be easier.

~|•|~

Pathclan (named after Pathsight)

Sparkheart/star (Optimus Prime) [leader]

A chimeric ginger/cinnamon and blue-grey tom with a white face and yellow eyes. Wears a yellow collar with a blue piece of the destroyed moonstone equivalent embedded into it, allowing him and Ratheart to commune with the ancestors wherever he needs to without going to the place.

Ruffcatcher (Arcee) [deputy]

Small tortoiseshell molly with mainly blue-grey fur with cream markings and white face, and green eyes.

Shatterclaw (Ultra Magnus) [original deputy]

Chimeric ginger/cinnamon and blue-gray tom with a white face and blue eyes, missing his right paw from the ankle down.

Ratheart (Ratchet) [medicine cat]

Old ginger classic tabby tom with high white spotting and blue eyes. Covered in minor scars under his fur.

Bouldermoss (Bulkhead)

Big and fluffy grey tom with blue eyes.

Circlefoot (Wheeljack)

Grey colorpoint tom with blue eyes.

Cliffleap (Cliffjumper)

Dark ginger (or red cinnamon) tom with blue eyes, curled white ears, and white paws and face.

Proudtail (Tailgate)

White tom with grey-blue head and tail markings (colorpoint or van), curled ears, and yellow eyes.

Pathsight (Alpha Trion)

A very old lilac longhair tom with red-orange eyes.

Splashfoam (Seaspray)

White tom with brown eyes.

Bumblepaw/strike (Bumblebee)

Ginger/cream/fawn mackerel/ticked tabby tom with blue eyes. Heavily scarred throat.

Smokepaw/sight (Smokescreen)

White tom with ginger and blue-grey markings on his head, tail, back, and legs. Yellow eyes.

~|•|~

Flightclan (named after Stoneflight)

Dustfang/star (Megatron) [leader]

Large fawn/grey tom with prominent fangs and red-orange eyes.

Silverflight/star (Starscream) [deputy]

Scrawny silver mackerel/classic tabby tom with red-orange eyes. Maybe Stormroar (Thundercracker) and Skyjump (Skywarp) as his dead littermates?

Deadwing (Dreadwing) [deputy]

Large blue-grey tom yellow eyes.

Runningfox (Knockout) [medicine cat]

Dark ginger ticked tabby tom with high white spotting (oriental shorthair? Rex?) and yellow eyes.

Wavefrost (Shockwave) [medicine cat]

Blocky grey tom with one yellow eye, left leg missing from elbow down, missing tail, mutilated ears, and left eye missing from its socket.

Stoneflight (Terminus)

Grey tabby tom with blue eyes.

Echowhisper (Soundwave)

Lithe and angular grey tom (breed cat?) with brown eyes.

Maybe (Laserbeak) would be his kit, or a raven he speaks with? Maybe the symbiotes as his kits?

Brookfall? (Breakdown)

Large blue-grey tom with yellow eyes.

Spiderstalk (Airachnid)

Chimeric black and cream tortoiseshell (plausible?) with green eyes.

Rumblesky (Skyquake)

Grey tom with red-orange eyes.

Shadowmask (Makeshift)

Black colorpoint tom with grey eyes.

Lizardpaw/blaze (Predaking)

A brown male cougar with gold eyes.

Darkpaw (Darksteel)

A greyish male cougar with gold eyes.

Lynxpaw/sky (Skylynx)

A greyish male cougar with brown eyes.

~|•|~

Starclan

Sparkspring (Primus)

Blue-grey tom with yellow eyes.

Proudstar (Prima)

White tom with blue eyes

Sparkstrike (Solus Prime)

Lilac molly with red-orange eyes and long fur.

Herbsight? (Alchemist Prime)

Light grey tom with brown eyes.

Shiftclaw?Waterpelt?Shiftpelt? (Amalgamous Prime)

Fawn tom with orange eyes.

Emberstone?Emberseed?Sparkseed?Sparkstone?Vinespark? (Quintus Prime)

Grey tom with curling ears and yellow eyes.

Hiddenstep (Vector Prime)

A golden-looking ginger ticked tabby tom with grey eyes.

Hoofstorm?Threemask? (Onyx Prime)

A chocolate tom with yellow eyes.

Fivespot? (Nexus Prime)

White tom with five large fawn-colored splotches.

Tinywatcher?Tinycrackle?Tinystone? (Micronus Prime)

Very small light grey tom with grey eyes.

~|•|~

Dark Forest

Violetnight (Unicron)

Fawn tom with spiky fur and brown eyes.

Venomthistle? (Liege Maximo)

Dark ginger tom with yellow eyes and curling ears.

Darkfall (Megatronus Prime)

Dark grey tom with orange eyes.

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