When a person considers acquiring a breed cat, the second decision to make is the color of the kitten he wants, a light cat, a dark one, with shades of color..., even when our new friend is a lovely common cat, it is interesting and kind of knows what color Belongs. It is often difficult to imagine that there can be a lilac cat, or clearly identify what they mean when they talk about a red cat or brown tabby. In this article we will try to summarize the most common colors in the current feline breeds.
The variety of colors existing in feline breeds is very extensive and there are a thousand variations, so we will summarize the most common and possible combinations between color distributions and types of stains.
As if it were a color scale used by the most chic decorator, there are several families of colors, that is, a base color – like black – that diluted ends up giving different colors. The variety of colors as well as drawing designs (spots, stripes...) is very wide so we would summarize in groups four fundamental colors: black, red, blue and cream, in addition to the white that is not
The first two (black and red) are vivid colors, so they are called solids; and blue and cream are its diluted variants or muted colors.
We will start with the black and its variants, from the darkest to the most diluted:
• Black: it should be as dark as possible and without strokes of another color, but in practice it always has some white gray hair, especially in the time of mounting. In winter its color is a beautiful bright jet black.
• Chocolate: it is a dark brown tone. It varies a lot in hue when the animal sunbathes, becoming more reddish. The face and legs are differentiated by a darker chocolate tone while the body is somewhat lighter.
• Blue: should be as clear as possible, it could be defined as a shade of gray with a bluish hue, but it is not similar to blue "surf".
• Lilac: lilac color when correct is a beautiful color; it's a pink blue, but the pink tone must be very present. When the lilac color is not good it can come to look like a blue clarity. A good lilac color stands out a lot and differs quickly.
Now we'll move on to the range of reds.
• Red: reddish brown, should be intense and dense. There are some lighter reds, which are between red and cream, but the ideal color is raised in tone and with a good reddish reflection.
• Cream: beige, it also has to be as pale as possible and not have reddish reflections, it is a sweet and light color. As if a painting will be treated, the marriage of red and black gives a variety of colors, turtles and their dilutions, where red and black coexist, blues and creams, etc. This variety is linked to sex, therefore they can only be females, although, every rule has an exception, and there are some isolated cases of males of this color, normally sterile.
• Black turtle: the ideal mantle is small spots of red and black well mixed.
There are also cats belonging to these colors in which black dominates; we'd see a basically black cat with some brushstroke of blue, or a red cat with some black spot.
• Chocolate turtles: a beautiful mix between chocolate and red, which gives the feeling of a classic tortoise but with a more brownish tone. This variety of color is very rare even among pedigree cats.
• Blue turtles: a harmonious blend of blue with cream. The color should be as pale as possible. As with turtles, we can also find cream blues that are blue with very few cream spots or the other way around, although the most common is the first.
• Lilac turtles: a balanced fusion between lilac and cream that gives the feeling of a very clear and harmonious mantle.
As with chocolate turtles it is a very exquisite color and the specimens of this variety are scarce.
One of the colors that most catch sea in the feline world is white, a spectacular color that has fallen in love with many cat fans. White has to be pure, immaculate and without traces of any other color. White cats can have blue eyes, coppers, and an eye of each color or, depending on the breed, green and yellow...
Smoke cats are a very nice variety to see, very striking in long hair and also very attractive in short hair. The peculiarity of smoke cats is that part of the hair root is much clearer than the tip, which gives a special reflection to the mantle. It is a color that affects the partial pigmentation of the hair giving feeling of movement, being a very spectacular variety.
Smokecats can be of any of the varieties of color mentioned above: blackwith the contrast of gray hair, blue with the contrast of very pale blue hair, red with the contrast of almost white hair, turtles, creams, etc.
Another variety of color very similar to smoke, but with the contrast more accentuated, are chinchillas and silver shaded. The coat of the chinchillas is almost white but with a silver touch at the tip, the difference with the silver shaded is that the latter has a little more color at the tip, which gives it a slightly darker look. These two varieties, in addition to the extreme beauty of their colour, add to their striking appearance their
beautiful emerald green eyes, which makes them some of the most beautiful of the feline panorama, either in short hair or in long hair.
Hyalayus cats, or also called point, have a very particular coloration.
When they are born they are practically white and then the typical spots of the breed come out; face, ears, legs and tail are pigmented and taking a darker tone. In fact, in cream or red varieties when young their body looks practically white, but it is a bone tone that goes dark with age.
We can find them in black, called seal, where the body is a long bone
darker and legs, face, ears and tail are practically black, and we can also find them in cream, a much lighter color, red, blue, lilac, turtle and all the varieties of color mentioned above, including the tabby drawing. What particularly draws attention in this breed is the contrast of the color of the face mask, a color, as we have already said, darker than the rest of the body, with beautiful blue eyes that must be of a navy blue, a really attractive combination. This variety of color can be found both in the typical Siamese cat, as in a Persian, an Exotic, a Sphynx and many more breeds.
Within the color distributions, what stands out most are three varieties of the same family, bicolor cats, blackamericans and vans:
• Bicolors: This variety of color is characterized by about half of its white body — the lower half: belly, legs, neck and some white on the face, there may also be some white spot on the back — and the other half color, of any of the colors described in the first part of the article. A black bicolor would have the upper body, back, tail and head black, while part of the face and lower body area would be white.
• Harlequin: the tail is colored, it also has color on the head and ears, the face may have some stains of color, and the body is basically white with several well-defined color spots and surrounded by white color.
• Van: the van is a basically white cat; the body should be immaculate white without any stain, the tail colored, the face completely white and two spots of color on the head, between the ears, separated by the white. In practice, many cats of this variety practically lack stains of color even on the head. This variety can be blue-eyed, disparate, copper and in some green or yellow breeds.
Apart from the different colors, what can vary greatly the appearance of the animal are the color distributions and the different types of tabby marks.
In current breed cats and also among our friends common cats, there are tabbydrawings. Surely if we poke our head out the window of our house and contemplate for a while the common cats of our neighborhood, we can see the typical cat brown tabby, brown with contrasting drawings on the body, a very usual color among the common European cats that has passed with great success to be part of the most select breeds of pedigree cats.
There are three tabby drawings in the feline panorama, although there are sometimes times that you can find a combination of two types of drawing in the same cat, one side of the body with a drawing and another side of the body with another drawing:
• Blotched: large spots on the sides in the shape of a butterfly. The tabby drawing is given by the contrast of darker and lighter tone of the stain and its outline.
• Tiger: very well defined vertical stripes on the sides of the body.
• Spotted: this variety has moles-like spots on the sides. In short-haired cats it is really spectacular and is very well defined.
All tabby cats also have drawings similar to rings on the tail and legs, stripes on the nape of the neck and also on the chest. The face of the tabby cats has a funny mark similar to the letter M.
Among tabby cats, we can find many breeds and varieties. The breeds of long hair, such as the Persian, due to the length of their hair have the least marked drawing. In the breeds of semi-long hair the tabby marks are already more accentuated, but in which they are really spectacular are the breeds of short hair.
Among them we will highlight the Bengal, a cat with beautiful green eyes and fantastic tabby brands that really closely resembles its wild ancestors and is of a truly spectacular beauty.
Undoubtedly, within all the color varieties that we have described, we will also find combinations of several of them at the same time. From a cat van tabby, to a bicolor himalayo, to a smoke tabby (called silver tabby), the varieties of colors combined with each other can be infinite.