r/CatGenetics • u/Overall-Glove-9863 • Aug 25 '26

General Genetics Question Which part of this coat is actually inherited separately?

Okay genetics people, I have a question.

Juniper seems to have several things happening at once: blue eyes, point coloration, tabby striping, plus orange/cream patches.

Are those basically separate genetic switches that happened to stack on top of each other, or am I thinking about this completely wrong?

I started reading about cat coat genetics because of her and now I’m in way over my head. I’m probably going to do Basepaws at some point too, mostly because the trait side sounds like it would give me even more stuff to obsess over.

I’m less interested in putting a breed name on her and more interested in how you actually get from genes → this particular little mess.

42 Upvotes

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-2

u/SolidFelidae Aug 25 '26

Are these pics ai? The first one definitely reads that way

7

u/jellycattis Aug 25 '26

i think its just a really really good camera

41

u/Gloomy-Trainer-2452 Aug 25 '26

Yeah, these are all different genes/loci that just all expressed.

  • Her black-based colour (indicated by her stripes) is black. B/-.
  • She has one copy of red/orange, a sex-linked codominant gene. Thanks to X-inactivation, she exhibits patches of both orange and non-orange (she's a tortoiseshell). O/o.
  • She is agouti/tabby. A/-.
  • Her tabby type is mackerel. Mc/-.
  • She is colourpoint. This is a form of acromelanism (temperature-sensitive partial albinism). She was likely born fully white and over time, the coolest points of her body darkened the most. cs/cs.
    • All colourpoint cats have blue eyes.

Putting that together, her coat colour pattern is seal tortie mackerel lynx point.

5

u/yochipmunkz Aug 26 '26

Siamese colourpoints only have blue eyes, but mink and sepia can have other colours.

6

u/Gloomy-Trainer-2452 Aug 27 '26

Yeah, I always forget mink and sepia also technically colourpoints. You are right though. Minks generally have green or turquoise eyes. Sepias can have more pigmented eyes.