#karpati

the most common cat color would be black, including black solids and black tabbies! there's a good amount of rare colors and i imagine some people would disagree with me about what is rare, but here's a few:

chocolate and cinnamon (solids)

lilac and fawn (dilute chocolate and cinnamon, solids)

silver smoke, shaded and tipped (different presentations of the inhibitor/silver restriction gene)

golden (another variation on the inhibitor gene)

amber (found in norwegian forest cats)

phoenix mutation

"red on blue" tabby and "pseudo-cinnamon" (i've actually seen some misinformation popping up about these guys recently >_>. a cool-tinted red cat is not necessarily one of these guys!!)

karpati mutation

finnish/salmiak/salt licorice mutation

On shorthair it presents quite dark over the back. Here is it on Transylvanian cat.

But then in some other versions it has white spots on its back???? This is shown well on this red karpati laperm variant outcross. Reminds me slightly of salmiak but with pale face instead of blaze.

It was listed as red karpati on @felinefractious

On longhair it seems to be paler over the back? Or is it the curls messing with it on these laperm longhairs?

Also where did the white points go?

The spots remind me of salmiak. Which is think is related to karpati. But I swear it's not in any breeds yet, only randombred, also has that "blaze" on the dark face..

So karpati-

So I think it gets paler on longhair????

Where is the laperms karpati white points. They seem to be darker in the face???

But why do some have spots and others not? Why do none of the laperms ever show spots on longhair or curly coats?

Is it the same mutations or is it secretly salmiak or something. But I thought salmiak wasn't in any breeds yet.

Karpati just confuses me.

All photos except salmiak are from @felinefractious

The problem with karpati is that we do not understand how it works yet. The expression varies greatly from "we know this black cat is actually karpati because we saw it when it was younger" to "silver-white" and we don't know what's the difference between them.

same cat, kitten/adult

littermates

It has been suggested some of this might be a heterozyote-homozygote difference, and i'm willing to believe that, but clearly there is more to this that a simple intermediate inheritence. I think the strength of the white on the muzzle is one these aspects.

The spotted phenotype in particular is thought to be homozygous karpati, but nothing is for sure yet. The curly hair probably breaks the spots up totally, also i think rexes has differently structured hairs (no guard hairs?), that's why they look lighter.

The lighter cat from above, and her family tree showing the spotted red cat you mentioned. Note that this is from 2023, and since then it turned out the "finnish pattern" is a different phenomenon. And uh, this is just my thought, but i think it's possible that one particular cat, the famous finnish mutation, is both karpati and salmiak, because salmiaks usually aren't that clearly spotted either, more evenly roaned. Although the ears aren't white, so maybe not.

Drawing my friends as cats 4!!

This is Silverfang. He is definitely not a vampire.

iirc, karpati typically leads to a white muzzle, not white eyes. it follows the same placement pattern as colourpoint, so the coldest parts of the body (ears, muzzle, paws, tail), are the parts affected.

Red Elderberry (Sambucus racemosa) • Buzina cervona