Tuxedo Cat With Steely Blue Eyes

Tuxedo cats are not expected to have blue eyes. They are usually yellow. That is my opinion. I will no doubt be corrected by someone wiser than me. Tuxedo cats are bicolor cats (two colours  – black and white). Tuxedo cats are mainly black with white patches to varying degrees on the chin, chest, belly, paws and tip of the tail but not necessarily on all these places. Sometimes the amount of white is very small.

Is a tuxedo cat with steely blue eyes rare and is he an Ojos Azules cat breed? “Ojos Azules” means blue eyes in Spanish. They were first “discovered” in Mexico where they speak a version of Spanish.

I have some pictures from Frédérique Pommarat of his cat. This is an interesting looking cat. The purebred, pedigree cat called the Ojos Azules is also an interesting cat because the truth is there are many random bred cats that have the appearance of an Ojos Azules purebred cat and which also satisfy the breed standard for the Ojos Azules. That is the way I see it.

The Ojos Azules is accepted as a cat breed by The International Cat Association (TICA). The breed standard with respect to the eyes in relation to the coat type is as follows:

1. Eye color should be clear blue or blue-grey, not turquoise or lavender.
2. COLOR (coat type): All. Preference is given to colors and patterns which would not be expected to have blue eyes in the absence of the Ojos trait (note: I added “coat type” to clarify).

Frederique’s cat, on the face of it, could fit the standard. That means the cat has the potential for being an Ojos Azules. As this cat is not registered with TICA and has no pedigree (family history going back several generations) the cat cannot be called an Ojos Azules.

Also a few bicolour cats have blue eyes and it is not because of the Ojos trait.

Blue eyes are blue because they lack pigment in the iris. Light is dispersed in the iris in the same way that light is dispersed in the sky causing it to look blue. It is about physics. You can read about it on this page.

The reason why this cat has no pigment or less than the usual amount of pigment in the iris is probably the same reason why he has a small patch of white fur on his chest. This cat carries the piebald or white spotting gene. White fur lacks pigment in the same way that blue eyes lack pigment.

However, Sarah Hartwell says that where the while spotting gene occurs over the eyes it may affect eye colour. In this instance there is no white over the eyes so are the blue eyes due to the Ojos trait?

There is one other interesting thing about this cat. The coat is rusty black. I believe that the coat is meant to be black but has turned rusty coloured. This may be due to diet.

“An inadequate amount of tyrosine in the cat’s diet results in an incomplete amount of melanin deposited inside the hair fibres” — that is a quote from this page, which discusses this condition.

Thank you Frederique for showing us your beautiful unregistered Ojos Azules.

Associated page: Ojos Azules (simplified version)