Dear Most Esteemed and Knowledgeable Kitties:
I know my cat is a tabby, I just don’t know what color tabby he is. Can you help me?
~ Kellie
Siouxsie: You’d think it would be easy to tell what color a cat is, but everybody seems to see a different color when they look at a tabby cat.
Thomas: As a tabby cat myself, I know how challenging this can be when humans try to describe me. Am I a gray tabby? Am I a brown tabby? Am I a little of both? What’s going on?
Bella: So let’s try to sort this out. Tabbies come in lots of colors and patterns, but here are some of the most common. First of all, the brown tabby has very dark-brown stripes on a light-brown background.
Siouxsie: Then there’s the orange tabby, sometimes known as a “marmalade cat,” which has very bright orange-reddish stripes on a medium orange background.
Thomas: The cream or buff tabby is a dilute version of the orange tabby, with medium orange stripes against a creamy or very pale orange background.
Bella: Then there’s the gray tabby, who has black stripes on a medium-gray background.
Siouxsie: The silver tabby has black stripes like a gray tabby, but the background color is a very light gray.
Thomas: Then there’s the patched tabby — a calico or tortoiseshell cat whose orange and black spots have stripes! Mama calls them “tabico” cats because she’s silly. Tee hee hee!
Bella: One tabby color you don’t see very often is the black tabby, a cat with black stripes on a very dark-gray background.
Siouxsie: And maybe you didn’t know this, but even cats that look solid black can actually be tabbies. In bright sunlight you may see very faint reddish stripes in a black cat’s fur. You can see Bella’s stripes in this photo — take a close look at the top of her head!
Bella: Siouxsie! That’s embarrassing!
Thomas: Why? Are you embarrassed to have stripes? Are stripes embarrassing to you? *sniffle*
Bella: Oh, Thomas, of course not! I just like the idea of being a black cat, that’s all. I love stripes, especially yours!
Siouxsie: Speaking of stripes, tabby cats with narrow stripes like Thomas are called mackerel tabbies or “tiger cats” back in New England where we came from.
Thomas: Some tabbies have big, wide stripes that form round shapes on their sides. Those cats are called classic or blotched tabbies. I don’t know why they’re so classic and mackerel tabbies aren’t. I see a lot more mackerel tabbies than blotched tabbies!
Bella: The ticked tabby has bands of stripes on each individual fur. You don’t see this pattern much in regular domestic cats, but the Abyssinian is a great example of a ticked tabby.
Siouxsie: And the spotted tabby looks a lot like a wild cat. Again, this pattern isn’t common in regular cats, but Bengals, Savannahs and Ocicats have spotted tabby coats.
Thomas: Almost every cat breed carries the tabby gene, even Siamese cats!
Bella: After looking at all these tabby cat pictures, what color tabby do you think Thomas is? Give us your guesses in the comments and tell us about the tabby cats you’ve known and loved.
Siouxsie: If you want to learn some cool stuff about the genetics behind cat fur, check out these articles Mama wrote for Catster:
JaneA Kelley is a punk rock cat mom and award-winning blogger. She is a regular columnist for Catster Magazine, and she and the Paws and Effect Gang share a home in the beautiful Pacific Northwest.
My first 2 were tabbies. JJ was mostly a gray with silver and tan in her stripes. She was said to be a “bullseye” tabby, as she had stripes in big spirals on her sides.
MY Thomas was a long-haired tabby, also a combination of grays, silver and tan. His fur had the color banding on each individual hair.
I had a little girl that was a solid gray, but when the sun hit her fur, you could see some reddish stripes.
Right now I have a very senior lady that has wide bands of orange and white, not like a tabby at all – but she has the M on her forehead that all tabbies have.
I also have a young mommy (calico) and her 4 boys. Two of the boys are black and white – no tabby markings – and the other two are orange tabby. One has long hair and looks very much like the marmalade pictured. The other has much shorter, more coarse fur, but with orange and tan stripes over light orange…
Thomas, I would consider you a silver tabby – we know how much of a unique man you are…
I wish I could post photos of my clowder here, then you would see what I don’t describe very well…
Love to all of you, and have a Happy and HEALTHY New Year!!
Thomas, I think you’re a grey tabby :D -and a beautiful one too :D
Puss was a blackie, but the older he got, the more orange came into his fur -he was still black, except in the bright sun lol :D (didnt make him any less beautiful though)
im not entirely sure what kind my 2 are …
Here’s Alexander:
https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10154097099910313&l=1c4d16177f
Here’s Sophie-Mae
https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10152688854980313&l=c921cf359f
My Noah is a ticked tabby!
https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10200315253473388&set=pb.1515674696.-2207520000.1419962291.&type=3&theater
My Charley looks a lot like Thomas — I think of him as a tuxedo brown tabby. Little Mya, on the other hand, might be a silver tabby as she is a silvery-gray with almost a cream background. I was told she was part Siamese. Not sure if this will work, but Charley is on the left, Mya on the right.
Doesn’t look like the photo worked, so here’s a link, Charley on left, Mya on right.
https://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/md9oZyNfTQhSCNxOsRfU3TDNivWzUu4bRwnPLYW9Vk8?feat=directlink
Cutie tabbies everywhere!
Orange tabby is my favorite! They have a majestic feel about them.
Thomas is a Mackerel tabby… :)
I have 4 tabby cats,first theres Theodore a ginger mackerel tabby,then Cheshire a silver mackerel tabby,Lillian a buff and white marble tabby,and Minnie a brown tabby (not sure what pattern she has,but i posted a picture of her,i love her stripes!). I have 9 cats all together lol theyre all rescues, but only 4 are tabbies. https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/cc1f0530f080454017b3718b59af56252fe3e2124865dbbcf268ee320bf09ea3.jpg
A gray tabby is actually a cat with blue/gray stripes against a lighter gray background. Think of it as a diluted brown tabby. All of the hairs that would be black will instead be blue. If the cat has black stripes, it’s not a gray tabby, it’s a brown or silver tabby. A brown tabby has black stripes against a brown and gray background; it’s your typical “tiger cat” and the wild type coloration of the wildcat. A silver tabby usually has striking black stripes (unlike the gray tabby) against a much lighter gray or white background, but with no brown/red coloration in the coat (unlike the brown tabby)
What kind of tabby is it that also has the white fur?
https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/439566cf922e42e873071739ee7ef7a99481612a14a569b55b219031bd271931.jpg What breed if the black tabby? Mine are black tabbys and I’ve never seen it before and I’ve been searching trying to find out
My Katie (and her deceased brother Spencer) are gray with Tabby markings. I’ve always described them as gray tabbies. Some people were adamant to me that there was no such thing as a gray Tabby that they’re all brown tabbies.
But from the pictures you posted the brown tabby is clearly Brown and the gray one is clearly Grey. So mine are definitely grey tabbies.
Here are pictures of Katie who is darker gray and Spencer who was lighter gray. Spencer had some spots. Katie is all stripes.
https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/269a195f69a4a6debc4766b163198a9831335213ba2390ae6c47c53b948e8754.jpg
https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/79b9537097df6018a831799d1b29a7c7f43b612a7eefef5fd920c966ddef417f.jpg
My Katie (and her deceased brother Spencer) are gray with Tabby markings. I’ve always described them as gray tabbies. Some people were adamant to me that there was no such thing as a gray Tabby that they’re all brown tabbies.
But from the pictures you posted the brown tabby is clearly Brown and the gray one is clearly Grey. So mine are definitely grey tabbies.
Here are pictures of Katie who is darker gray and Spencer who was lighter gray. Spencer had some spots. Katie is all stripes.
https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/269a195f69a4a6debc4766b163198a9831335213ba2390ae6c47c53b948e8754.jpg
https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/79b9537097df6018a831799d1b29a7c7f43b612a7eefef5fd920c966ddef417f.jpg https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/49b1598c208b233526104e4d73b258020833472e0276e70260664ea89a031707.jpg
This was very helpful. A tabby came to live with us a couple months ago and I’ve been at a loss when I try to describe her color. Now I know she’s a brown tabby. Maybe a brown mackerel?
https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/be924924eb3fd21bea083337df39982c297e1955f0a876ab7b39d42e43e06081.jpg
https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/c4e51b4c291d095f13896f69f181c58526631f8740f1ad09611c9092ccaeb625.jpg
My very first pair were unrelated tabbies. Thomas was a long hair, dilute grey tabby with some beige. JJ (female) was a silver tabby, also with beige striping. Her stripes made “bullseyes” on her sides.
She was the smartest, canniest cat I’ve ever known. You could SEE her thinking and planning – it was amazing!
They were mine for nearly 16 years, and died within 9 months of each other. They opened the door to many, many, fur-babies since, but I still miss them terribly!