This is a resource page for me and my friends on a pbf forum. Not every writer can also draw, so we often use pictures of cat to represent appearance of our characters. This, combined with my love for cats, made me collect instagram and flickr pages of various cats. I want to share all of them here :)

All of the cats are sorted by genetics, on the left column. There is... a lot of subpages, but trust me, I need all of them to keep everything clean.

Every cat will have: a picture, description of their fur pattern (in english but also in polish), as well as a link to their profile on instagram or flickr (where you can find more pictures of the cat) and also cat's name if it's provided :D

COUNTER OF CATS ON THE SITE: 319

Basic genetics knowledge is important while browsing this page, but not necessary. I will share most important info about cat's fur here.

FUR LENGHT - cats can be eighter short-haired or long-haired. Short-hair is a dominant gene.

LOCUS B — gene that isn't sex-linked and is responsible for the base color of the cat (black, chocolate or brown pigment).

• B - black
• b - chocolate
• bl - cinnamon

Black is dominant to chocolate and chocolate is dominant to cinnamon. That makes black the most common and cinnamon the most rare out of the three.

LOCUS O — gene that is sex-linked and determines whether a cat will produce eumelanin. In cats with orange fur, phaeomelanin (red pigment) completely replaces eumelanin (black or brown pigment).

• O - orange cat
• o - non-orange cat

This gene is located on the X chromosome. Males can typically only be orange or non-orange due to only having one X chromosome. Since females have two X chromosomes, they have two alleles of this gene. OO results in orange fur, oo results in fur without any orange (black, brown, etc.), and Oo results in a tortoiseshell cat, in which some parts of the fur are orange and other areas non-orange. This is also why tortie male cats are very rare and a result of a mutation of some sort.

Important thing to note is also that orange cats always have a tabby patern.

LOCUS D - gene responsible for dilution of color.

• D - full, dark color
• d - diluted, lighter color

How it works:

• black → blue
• chololate → lilac
• cinnamon → fawn
• ginger → cream

diluted torties have not only their base color diluted but also orange, so it's a cream color instead.

LOCUS A - is a gene that determins if cat will have stripes that are called a tabby pattern.

• A - agouti colouring - hair with ticking (tabby markings)
• a - solid color of fur

There are various patterns of striped fur in cats. The most basic ones are:

• mackerel - also called tiger stripes sometimes, because they resemble the pattern of the stripes of a tiger
• classic/blotched - heavy stripes, that make a swirl pattern on the sides of cat's body
• spotted - brochen band that look like spots on fur
• ticked - no distinct stripes, it creates a darker shading on cat's back. stripes can be visible on legs sometimes

WHITE MARKINGS - cats can be covered in any amount of white markings. They can have from little white spots, to being completely white. Thing to note is that full white cats always have a genotype underneath their white coat. Cat can be white but a black tabby geneticaly.

White markings always distribute on cats body from external parts of their body (like paws and belly) to tail and top of the head. What it esentialy means is that cats almost fully-covered in white markings will have color on their tail and some small ones on their head. Cats that are covered in white in around 50% will have the white markings on their legs and belly. Etc.

I won't be explaining next genes in depth, because I want to keep this page simple and also I'm not that smart, but I will show how they look like :)

SILVER AND SMOKE CATS - this gene makes cat's fur silver, as the name says. Tabby cats will have high contrast between stripes and the background. Background is light and has a cooler tone. Solid cats with this gene will be smoke instead of silver cats - they will have lighter, silver colored fur mainly on belly and neck. On short-haired cats smoke color can have visible ghost-markings, that resemble stripes.

COLOURPOINTS, MINKS AND SEPIAS - is a gene related to albinism. Colourpoints are born white or almost white and get darker with age and termperature. They have color on their face, ears, paws and tail. This is a fur pattern of siamease cats, so people are rather familiar with this gene. Colorpoint cats always have blue eyes. Mink cats are similar, but they don't have as big of a contrast between markings on face, ears, paws and tail. They have sea-green eyes. Sepias, also know as burmease cats, are the darkest of the three. They have small contrast. Their eyes are golden or golden-green.

GOLDEN SERIES - gene, that makes cat get a golder tint to their fur with age. I don't have the understanding of it tho, so that's all I will say. These cats just have golden fur.

There is a lot more fur color modificating genes, but they won't be featured on the site, so that's it.

There is also a special section, not related to fur color, for various types of cat's breeds and mutations. You can read about those at other online resources.

cat genetics on messybeast cat genetics on messybeast 2 for those who want to know more about genetics.