What affects us affects cats
The Scottish Fold Straight should not exist. It only exists as a by-product of the need to avoid creating horribly unhealthy Scottish Fold cats which have both copies (Fd/Fd) of the gene (Fd) which causes the ear flaps to fold down because of weak cartilage. You’ve probably heard of the Scottish Fold purebred cat. …
Male tortoiseshell cats are very rare because the genes which create the coat colour and pattern are sex linked. There should be no tortoiseshell male cats. There are some because of a minor genetic error which allows the male to develop with the combination XXY chromosomes. The double X gives it the chance to …
The title sounds unfair and biased but it isn’t as it is based in biological fact. The prevalence of deafness in pure white domestic cats varies depending on whether they have two blue eyes (the highest proportion of deaf cats), odd-eye colour or non-blue eyes (least likely to be deaf in both ears). Where …
You know that in the cat fancy grey cats are called blue cats. The best known is the ‘Blue British Shorthair’. This is a grey-furred cat. Grey fur is caused by the presence of the dilution gene. It causes the melanin pigment clumps in each hair strand to be dispersed with gaps as shown …
This is my second picture of a muscle-bound hairless (Sphynx) cat which shows the condition that they are suffering from very clearly. Click here to see the other image. It is a very peculiar condition. Perhaps it is advantageous to the cat to have these huge muscles? But apparently not (see below). Are there …
What makes a cat’s fur white? And what makes a cat’s eyes blue? And white cats deaf? I am not referring to albino cats by the way. White fur White fur contains hair shafts in which there is no pigment called melanin. White is the absence of colour. Technically you might say that white …
“Inbreeding depression” is a euphemism for a general lack of health in an individual purebred cat which has been selectively bred (using artificial selection) for appearance, which automatically incorporates inbreeding. Cat breeders often have to inbreed their purebred cats in order to fix their appearance. This is because the appearance is held on a …
For me cat DNA and genetics is all about cat breeding. Do cat breeders, even those registered with cat associations, have a good knowledge of genetics? They should have because artificial selection as opposed to natural selection (think Charles Darwin) is nearly always inbreeding to fix the recessive gene that makes some purebred cats …
