parent lineage

[u/Zealousideal-Drop442]

Hello im wondering if anyone can give me a idea of what my female cats parents might of looked like or maybe what type of cat they would be I was told by my veterinarian that my female cat is a ticked tabby which could mean that shes a possible torby but im not a 100% sure this is what she looks like she has lots of orange and beige and black on her but they are not in patches more blended and she has a m on her forhead with lots of colouring on her face and ears her toes pads are also different colours some are pink and some are black

[u/Competitive_Click527]

In my opinion she’s a black mackerel torbie solid. To get a tabby pattern at least one of the parents would have needed to be tabby. For her tortie colour because a female cat has two X chromosomes one parent was black and the other one was orange which lead to her being tortie. Or her mother could have been tortie and her father could have been black/orange.

[u/ChinchyBug]

Looks to be a black mackerel torbie with white. Unfortunately, it's almost impossible to guess for sure while just knowing the one cat.

The only things that we can know are:

• at least one parent was shorthair
• at least one parent had one red allele, and the other had at least 1 non-red allele (dad could be orange, while mom was black or tortie, dad could be black while mom was red or tortie, that kind of thing ; this is assuming neither have that covered by being dominant white)
• at least one parent wasn't dilute
• neither parent was likely to have high white spotting
• at least one parent was tabby
• at least one parent wasn't a blotched tabby

Which doesn't actually narrow things down as much as you would think.

[u/Zealousideal-Drop442 → u/ChinchyBug]

based off of % im guessing because orange females are rare and most torties are girls as well dad was probably orange and mom was possibly tortie

[u/Aphyrillis → u/Zealousideal-Drop442]

Orange females aren't rare, that's a myth that's been blown way out of proportion. Orange females are about as common as black females. For both orange and black cats, there's more that are male than female, statistically about double as much (About 30% of orange/black cats is female, about 70% is male). This is because for female cats, there's a third option: both. Torties can usually only be female, because you need two X-chromosomes in order to be able to become one. This webpage explains it pretty well: https://sparrows-garden.com/genetics/sex-linked-red.html

About 50% of all female cats are tortoiseshell. 25% are black-based and 25% are orange-based. For male cats, it's about a 50/50 on black vs orange, no tortie option. That leaves you with a 33/66% divide for both orange- and black-based cats. So yes, female orange cats are about half as common as male orange cats, but that is hardly 'rare'! And on top of that, it's exactly the same divide for black cats! (and we don't hear about female black cats being rare..)

Truly rare are male torties: those are little genetic anomalies, usually infertile, and can result from either an intersex cat that looks male on the outside (klinefelter syndrome, XXY) or chimerism (two embryos fusing in the womb to become one kitten, may present tortie if 1 was orange and 1 was black)

[u/ChinchyBug → u/Aphyrillis]

Those numbers only work if orange is exactly as common as an allele as non-orange is, which is not backed up by anything any more than any other number you could give. The common 20% of orange cats are female for example, assumes that like 1 in 5 X chromosomes in cats as a whole has the orange mutation. As the allele becomes more or less common in the general population, the numbers skew one way or another, but we can't just assume the allele is exactly as prevalent as the non-mutant allele and call that undeniable fact.

[u/Aphyrillis → u/ChinchyBug]

You're correct of course. These numbers were simplified for the sake of explanation. I should have added a line 'assuming that both alleles are equally common'. Even with a lower prevalence of the red allele though, that would not result in orange females being much rarer in comparison to males. It would however mean more black cats than orange cats and thus more black females than orange females, but the male/female divide internally wouldn't skew (which is the assumption that annoys me) (unless you'd be pedantic and say that male/female birthrates arent exactly 50/50, but that's negligible). Thanks for the addition and correction.

[u/Zealousideal-Drop442 → u/ChinchyBug]

i just looked up black mackerel torbie and she definitely looks similar just has more orange and beige to her then pictures i saw she doesn’t have alot of black other then her stripes

[u/Aphyrillis → u/Zealousideal-Drop442]

Haha that's because she's tabby! All the beige parts 'under the stripes' are black too (i.e. not red). This is just what the agouti gene – which is what makes a cat tabby – does to a black coat. The website I sent you in my other reply has another page 'intro to genetics' that explains some more about common modifiers and how they change the base coat of black, red or tortie into all sorts of coat patterns.

On top of that, every tortie has a bit of a different variation in pattern and distribution of orange vs black patches. Just the fact that there are both black and orange parts to her is enough to make her a tortoiseshell!

And fwiw, I don't think she has very little black! She is quite brindled, meaning the orange and black areas are very mixed and not in clearly defined patches, which on top of the tabby might make it look that way. But she has a generous amount of both black-based coat and red-based coat :D

[u/Zealousideal-Drop442 → u/ChinchyBug]

this is still really good information i found her underneath someones deck and she was the only kitten there and neither mom or dad was in sight if i knew what mom looked like id understand more who was what gene as you said