May Starclan light your path

If the tom carries dilute, each kit will have a 50/50 chance of being dilute. Otherwise, every kit will be brown/black.

One or both parents can indeed carry the gene for solid. If both of them carry it the kits will each have a 25% chance of being solid, but otherwise they’ll all be tabbies. If the tom carries classic tabby, each tabby kit will have a 50/50 chance of being classic; otherwise, every tabby kit will be a mackerel tabby.

A given clan will probably have three or four generations of cats in it at once, depending how lucky and long-lived the elders have been. Assuming you want to have every cat’s parents figured out, going back five generations would definitely be safe. I’m not entirely clear what you mean by how far you need to go back, but I hope this answers your question? You don’t have to make an intense family tree if you don’t want to, but it can be useful to make sure the genetics line up.

Yeah, this would be doable! Neither parent can be red or cream. While neither parent has to be chocolate or lilac, it’s far more likely if at least one of them is (and even more likely if they both are). One can be cinnamon or fawn if you really want though (but keep in mind chocolate, lilac, cinnamon, and fawn are all quite rare in non-purebred cats). Only one of them can be dilute (blue/grey, lilac, fawn, etc.) At least one has to be silver, and they should both probably have somewhere between 0-60% white. At least one should be a tabby, and they should probably be a classic tabby.

Ginger tabby toms and tortoiseshell or tortoiseshell-tabby she-cats. Maybe some cream tabby toms and blue-cream tortie or tabby-tortie she-cats, if the she-cat carries dilute.

Short answer: nope

Long answer: if you’d told me their genders and any of them had been female, I could’ve told you broadly what color he was, but you didn’t, so I can’t. If the mother isn’t a tabby calico, he was a mackerel tabby, but that’s about all I can say from this

This orange tabby cat’s entire underside, feet, and most of its tail appear white or whited. The white on this cat doesn’t look like a white spotting pattern and instead resembles a horse pattern known as pangaré or mealy. Most tabbies (whether brown/black, grey/blue, chocolate, lilac, cinnamon, fawn, orange/ginger, or cream/buff) don’t have that white or whited an underside or feet.

One reason I think that this cat appears to have a feline version of pangaré is because in white spotting, the delineation between the base color and the white areas is sharp whereas in pangaré, the delineation between the base color and the white or lighter areas is gradated or smooth. Another reason I think this cat appears pangaré instead of white spotted is that unless there is a little white tail tip, white spotting doesn’t cover any part of the tail except for Grade 9 patterns.

I’ve heard that many solid grey cats appear to have lighter muzzles and toes but what could explain this cat’s pattern and mostly white tail?

This mealy or pangaré appearance appears to be easier to achieve on a tabby than on a solid colored cat as solid colored cats, even dilute ones, don’t usually have lighter colored undersides whereas tabbies usually do. So, do you think that Spiderleg in the Warriors series would be more realistic patternwise if he were a tabby?

This otherwise short-haired cat also appears to have a medium-haired feathered tail. What could explain that trait?

Horse pattern descriptions do not work for cats. Some patterns can originate from the same or similar genes, but it is foolish to apply terminology from one species to another when you don’t know for sure the genetic origin. 

Also, I don’t know where you heard that a white-spotted cat cannot have a white tail tip. While it’s true that a cat’s whole tail will typically not be white unless it has quite high-grade white spotting, just the tip being white is reasonably common at lower grades (it’s often seen with tuxedo patterns, for instance).

But to answer your question about this cat, though, you’re right, he does not look to have white spotting. He looks like a red silver tabby (sometimes called a “cameo tabby”). I have no idea whether the silver gene in cats is in any way similar to the mealy/pangaré gene in horses, but that’s largely irrelevant anyway.

Silver is associated with being a tabby (a solid cat with the silver gene will end up smoke instead), so you’re right that this is more common among tabbies, but silver patterns don’t suddenly make Spiderleg remotely possible, tabby or not. Silver causes the cat’s fur to be white with colored tips; this would not make a black cat with a brown belly any less impossible. Golden tabbies, where the fur is honey/pale apricot with colored tips, exist (and are VERY rare), but this would result in that cat looking golden-colored with black stripes (or spots or whatever), not with a cat being black with a brown belly. 

Brown and black coloration is only a thing when a cat is a brown tabby -- brown with black stripes. If that’s what you mean, then yes, definitely, a brown tabby she-cat and a black and white she-cat could definitely be siblings. Neither their mother nor father could be red or cream, and at least one of them would have to be a tabby, but other than that these cats can very easily be siblings.

I was wondering what kits from this pairing would look like, the bengal being the father and the two greys being the mothers (both separate litters)

The photos are a bit hard to tell from, particularly of the second mother, since you have very little of her body in there. My guess is that the left mother is a grey mackerel tabby (with some white-spotting) and the right mother is a silver mackerel tabby (possibly with white-spotting? hard to tell). The bengal looks like a brown tabby with rosettes of course.

To start with, since the tom is likely purebred and bred for that sort of pattern, it’s likely that he is a homozygous tabby, and thus that every kit will be some sort of tabby. However, they are unlikely to inherit his clear rosettes -- I’m told that the kits of a rosetted cat and a non-rosetted cat will likely have a marbled pattern. This is the case for both mothers.

If the father carries dilute, each kit with Left Mother will have a 50/50 chance of being a grey tabby rather than a brown tabby like their father. Each kit will probably have about a 50/50 chance of sharing their mother’s white-spotting, though it could end up not being fully expressed. 

Depending on Right Mother’s genetics, either her kittens will have a 50/50 chance of being silver tabbies, or they will all be silver. Remember, silver means that pale sort of under-coat with very dark stripes (or in this case, marbling). Here is an example of a silver marbled bengal.

Unless the tortie carries some form of colorpoint/albinism, none of the kits will be colorpoint, and unless the tom carries chocolate or cinnamon (unlikely unless he’s an Oriental breed with recent kittypet ancestry), none of the kits will be chocolate.

Each male kit will have a 50/50 chance of being red or black/brown, and each female kit will have a 50/50 chance of being red or tortie. If the father carries the longhaired allele, each kit will have a 50/50 chance of being longhaired; otherwise, every kit will be shorthair. 

If the female does carry colorpoint or albinism, each kit will have a 50/50 chance of being either point or mink (depending which allele the mom carries). 

Okay, so Ferncloud’s description is kinda weird (“with darker flecks”? wtf?) but in previous asks R treated her as a grey broken mackerel tabby (which does make sense with her parentage), so we’ll do that here too.

Bramblestar is a brown mackerel tabby which is already genetically correct, so thank StarClan for that. 

However, a lot of this depends on what Bramblestar carries, however, since a brown mackerel tabby is almost the most dominant pattern a cat could possibly have, and his mother is supposed to be “pale ginger”, which is ACTUALLY impossible if she’s his real mother. Since she’s supposed to be pale-colored but gives birth to several not-red kits, we’re going to pretend that she’s a dilute tortie instead. 

Okay, so the problem with tabby markings is that there four relevant genes that affect and overrule each other when they interact. 

The first, and most important, is the agouti gene. I’ll often simply refer to this as the “tabby gene” in explanations, but that’s not entirely accurate. What this does is completely turn on or off agouti/tabby patterns. Solid is recessive, so a solid cat has two solid alleles. A cat with one or more dominant agouti alleles will be some variety of tabby. A solid cat will still have various alleles on the other tabby genes, but since it’s solid, you won’t see it unless it has tabby kits.

The next is the primary tabby pattern gene. There are two potential alleles: the dominant mackerel allele and the recessive classic allele. If a tabby cat has two classic alleles, it will be a classic tabby (barring interference from other genes). If a tabby cat has one or more mackerel alleles, it will be a mackerel tabby (barring interference from other genes).

Next is the secondary tabby pattern gene, which controls whether your cat is a ticked tabby. The ticked tabby allele is dominant, so if a tabby cat has one or more ticked tabby allele, it will be a ticked tabby regardless of other tabby genes (except for, of course, the agouti gene itself, as the other tabby genes don’t overrule that one). 

Additionally, there is the spotted/broken tabby gene. The spotted/broken allele is dominant, and having one or more will “break up” your cat’s mackerel or classic tabby pattern into a spotted/broken tabby pattern. This will not affect ticked tabbies.

If your cat is a ticked tabby but is heterozygous on the secondary tabby pattern gene, yes, it can give birth to non-ticked tabbies. Any tabby kit that inherits at least one copy of the agouti allele and inherits the non-ticked tabby allele from both parents will be a mackerel or classic tabby. Thus, even two ticked tabbies could produce a mackerel or classic tabby kit, provided they are both heterozygous on the secondary tabby pattern gene.

Luckily, shorthair solid black with white spotting is a really common, easy pattern to have, so you’ve got some good options.

At least one parent should be black (or brown tabby), at least one parent should have some white on them, and at least one parent should be shorthair. His mother cannot be ginger or cream. Otherwise, you can really do whatever you want!

As for his sibling, that really depends what you decide on for his parents. Feel free to send another ask once you’ve settled on their appearances!

Okay, so this gets a bit complicated. 

Before you add smoke/silver and/or pointed patterns, unless the father carries chocolate or cinnamon (which, as a Maine Coon, he’d be unlikely to do), every kit will have black as its base color. If for some reason he does carry chocolate or cinnamon, each kit has a 50/50 chance of being chocolate. If he carries dilute, each kit will have a 50/50 chance of being dilute (blue/grey instead of black, lilac instead of chocolate).

If the father doesn’t carry any colorpoint genes (which, as a Maine Coon, he’d be unlikely to do), none of the kits will have any pointed patterns. If he does carry Siamese/point (or one of the albino genes), each kit will have a 50/50 chance of being Siamese/point. If he carries Burmese/sepia instead, each kit will have a 50/50 chance of being Tonkinese/mink rather than Siamese/point.

Smoke is dominant, so it depends if the father is homozygous or heterozygous. If he’s homozygous, every kit will be smoke. If he’s heterozygous, each kit will have a 50/50 chance of being smoke.

Tl;dr: most likely, the kits will either all be smoke like their father, or they’ll be half smoke and half solid black. Blue smoke and solid blue are also reasonably likely.

This is old enough that they’ve relocated the generator, but they do have a link to the new location and it seems pretty good! Check it out, guys!