#sokoke

🐱 Sokoke

📸 Charly Mann

Sorry if I'm asking for too much, but my brain just doesn't get it. It's always better when someone explains something directly to me rather than just some random article that uses confusing terms for beginners.

(Also, are there some letters for some of these?? For example, MC/mc, D/D, etc. Or are all of them polygenetic?? I just need a simple explanation. You don't have to worry about it.)

1. Charcoal

Charcoal comes from the agouti allele of the leopard cat (Prionailurus bengalensis) called APb, so it's allelic with tabby A (Felis catus agouti) and solid a. For this reason i usually reserve the term 'tabby' for A_ cats, and call Apb_ just 'charcoal' (as opposed to 'charcoal tabby').

A is pretty much dominant over Apb, so A/Apb cats look regular tabbies.

A standard, dark faced, dark patterned charcoal is usually Apb/a genetically, but even Apb/Apb can and usually does look darker than A/_, sometimes even as dark as an Apb/a - these homozygous cats are sometimes called 'double charcoals'. Another, rarely used but in my opinion more fortunate terminology is 'midnight charcoal' for Apb/a and 'twilight charcoal' for Apb/Apb. (It reflects the level of darkness more intuitively.)

Apb/Apb, Apb/a, a/a (vö rosetted tabby below)

Charcoal is simply an agouti allele and as such, it's independent of any other gene, and can be combinated with all cat colors, including every patterns from blotched to servaline.

2. Rosetted, braided, marbled

I haven't found actual proof of this, but very likely these are all caused by the same modifier(s), from respectively the spotted, mackerel and blotched pattern. This hypothetical modifier is sometimes called the bengal modifier because rosetted and marbled are both bengal-specific patterns, and braided is the characteristic of toygers, a breed originating from bengal/domestic cross. The fourth installment of the series would be servaline (modified ticked).

servaline, ticked, rosetted, spotted, braided, mackerel, marbled, blotched

There's no gene yet associated with this modifier. I'm thinking it's probably fairly intermediate (and/or additive polygenic), because bengal crosses are often 'kind of' rosetted.

3. Sokoke

Sokoke is a rare breed with an unique pattern: very overticked blotched tabby. (This means there's little-to-no true solid black in the coat, even the darker parts have some agouti banding.) I don't think there ever were any genetic explanation for this pattern (although i think it can be an extreme form of the chaos polygenes (which themselves are hypothetical too, but you know. It makes sense to me)).

part 2/4 (p4, p3, p1)

Huevempurr days 3 through 6!