Older kittens and adult grey tabbies can have eye colours that range from pale gold to deep green. There is little to no striping on the body, but some faint fine barring may be present on the face, legs and tail, this may be more apparent if the cat is heterozygous, meaning its genetic makeup is T a/ T m or T a/ t bĪll grey tabby cats are born with blue eyes, this gradually changes during the first few weeks of life. Each hair has bands of colour along the hair shaft. Ticked: Also known as a gouti tabby, the ticked tabby cats have a gene that hides the tabby striping, leaving only the underlying agouti colouration. Spotted: The spotted grey tabby is a variant of the mackerel tabby however a modifier gene breaks the characteristic mackerel stripes up into spots. The classic tabby pattern first emerged in the middle ages. Grey classic tabby coats consist of a silver background with sworls of dark and a circular bullseye on the flanks. Grey and white mackerel tabbyĬlassic tabby: Also known as blotched or marbled, the classic tabby pattern is recessive to mackerel, which means the cat must inherit a copy of the classic tabby gene from each parent to have the pattern. Mackerel tabby is the most common tabby pattern and is dominant, therefore the cat only needs to inherit one copy of the T m gene to be mackerel tabby. Mackerel tabby: Also known as ‘ tiger cats‘, the mackerel is the original wild-type pattern and consists of a dark stripe along the back and a fishbone pattern down the side of the cat. The coat pattern of the grey tabby occurs in three patterns, mackerel, classic, spotted and ticked. Breeders have worked hard to eliminate this by selective breeding, and tarnishing is most frequently seen in random-bred cats. Occasionally, the yellow colour can be seen in parts of the coat, known as tarnishing. The absence of yellow makes the black tabby pattern stand out against the pale background. Normally, the background colour has areas of yellow and black banding (ticking) along the hair shaft. The silver is caused by the melanin inhibitor gene I/i, which suppresses the development of pheomelanin (yellow pigment) from the agouti areas of the coat. The silver/grey background is caused by an inhibitor gene If the cat carries a copy of the A gene, it will be tabby, in order for it to be non-tabby (a solid colour, such as black), it must inherit two copies of the recessive ‘ a’ gene, one from each parent.

The cat carries two sets of genes, inherited from the mother and father. The agouti gene (symbolised by an uppercase A) is dominant over its mutant form non-agouti (lowercase a). Pattern: Melanistic overlay of bars, spots, swirls and rosettes.

Background: Alternating agouti hairs are made up of bands of black and yellow (brown tabbies) or black and off-white (grey tabbies).The tabby pattern is thought to have come from the African wildcat ( Felis lybica) and consists of two components. The grey tabby is not a specific breed of cat but is a common striped coat pattern that is found in purebred and mixed (random bred) cats. Cat lovers worldwide appreciate these gorgeous kitties for their stunning patterns and smoky to silver fur. When it comes to beautiful cats, the grey tabby certainly makes the list.

Dark gray tabby