Are all domestic cats tabbies?
When you look at domestic cats today, you see a very wide range of coat types and colours. You would be deceived into believing that all domestic cats are not tabbies but technically they...
Tagged: tabby
What does ‘agouti’ mean in cats?
We see the word ‘agouti’ used a lot in the world of cats, particularly the world of cat breeders. This is because it is a word that indirectly refers to a very common type...
What is the most common cat coat type in the UK?
The blotched (classic tabby) pattern is the most common for domestic and stray cats in the UK today. It is unclear why the classic tabby is more common than the striped (mackerel) tabby. As...
New research into the domestic cat tabby pattern does not fully explain how the pattern is created
The news media is having a field day in declaring to the world that we now know how tabby cats get their stripes. And they give thanks to the team of scientists at the...
What is eumelanin in cats?
Eumelanin is a pigment in domestic cats and other animals (and humans). It is often referred to as melanin but in fact there are three different types of melanin: eumelanin, pheomelanin and neuromelanin. The...
What is a tabby cat?
A tabby cat can be any one of the following: a random bred domestic cat, a feral cat, a stray cat, a community cat or a purebred, pedigree cat and even a wild cat;...
Why do many domestic cats have white ‘socks’ on their paws?
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...
Picture of two Aussie firefighters cradling two tabby cats
I am a fan of firefighter-cat pictures! And this is a very nice one. One of the best. The guys are happy to have rescued a couple of tabby cats from a smoke filled...
Pictures of striped tabby cats
Striped tabby cats are also called mackerel tabbies in reference to the skin of the fish by the same name. This is the ancient type of tabby pattern close to the one we see...
The cat with the most pronounced ‘ticked’ coat
The cat with the most pronounced ‘ticked coat’ is the jaguarundi, a small wild cat species. The picture of a jaguarundi on this page illustrates this extraordinarily ticked coat. The cat fancy (domestic cat...
What types of tabby cats are there?
There are five types of tabby cat coat with many variants due to selective breeding over many years. On this page you will see illustrations of the five types of tabby coat together with full descriptions and some history.
Why Are Tabby Cats Called Tabby Cats?
Tabby cats are called tabby cats because of the description of their coat which is derived from the name of watered silk called ‘Atabi’ from the Attabiah district of Baghdad, Iraq. The silk has a similar appearance to the mackerel tabby coat.
Agouti Cat Color
The agouti cat color refers, in fact, to a coat pattern; a type of cat coat and in fact the most common cat coat. The word “agouti” is the name given to a coat...
What is the difference between a tabby and a Maine Coon?
The difference between tabby and a Maine Coon is that the former describes a coat and the latter describes a cat breed.
Are tabby cats male?
No. People ask, “are tabby cats male?”. They should ask “are red tabby cats male?”. To which the answer is: there are more male red tabby cats than female tabbies. To an informed cat...
Note: sources for news articles are carefully selected but the news is often not independently verified.