A Michael Broad Blog
The total amount of melanin (pigment) in the iris of the eye determines the range of eye colours in cats and in humans. The same principles apply to all animals with a similar eye anatomy. The pigment ‘melanin’ is produced by cells called melanocytes. The amount of pigment produced and the way that melanocytes …
The question effectively asks why cats are white all over. It is because they have a dominant gene symbolised by the letter W which removes pigment from the hair strands. It does this by removing the pigment creating cells in the skin. These are called melanocytes. Genes are on chromosomes and chromosomes are in …
To get straight to the point the reason why domestic cats often have white socks is because during the early centuries of cat domestication people liked to see rare tabby cats with white fur on their paws so they made sure there were more. Today they are called tabby-and-white cats. They are not a …
This lady wants to modify her cat’s behaviour. He is a 7-month-old Turkish Angora (TA). She didn’t realise it until recently that he is deaf. Turkish Angoras are not uncommonly born deaf and sometimes have odd-eye color (blue and yellow) both for the same reason: the presence of the while spotting (piebald gene) or …
Here is a series of very useful charts showing various aspects of the effect of the presence of the white spotting gene including theories on how the gene works to create varying amounts of white fur. The charts come from Sarah Hartwell’s messybeast.com website with her permission. Sarah is the graphic artist. Talented lady. …
Cats with white moustaches (“mustaches” in American English) are not that rare. These cats do stand out. They have white fur along their whisker pads and then up and around like a fancy, old-fashioned moustache. The white fur is caused by the [weaver_popup_link href=’http://pictures-of-catsorgblog.pictures-of-cats.org/2007/11/piebald-gene-what-does-it-mean.html’ h=’600′ w=’800′]Piebald gene[/weaver_popup_link], also known as the white spotting gene. …
Roy is a pretty typical cat. It is nice though to see him getting the five star treatment from Helmi Flick. He looks great in these photographs. Bicolor cats with a solid color and white are probably the second more common cat coat after the tabby and tabby and white. Although the tabby coat …
photo by bass_nroll Two things come to mind when discussing the subject of a deaf cat: what made him/her deaf? how do we know he/she is deaf and what can we do about it? What makes a cat deaf? This section can be divided into two; (a) causes due to defects in the hearing mechanism …
