Quick question —

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  • [center][fancypost= 0px; width: 378px; text-align: justify; font-size: 8.5pt; line-height: 1.4;]Would a brown and cream tortoiseshell tabby be considered dilute? Or is it something different?


    As far as I know, tortoiseshells are always black and red tabby unless their phenotype is affected genetically and torbies are typically black tabby (or brown, they mean the same I'm pretty sure) and red tabby. So I'm stumped and curious about this ^^

    The post was edited 1 time, last by sachmis ().

  • A tortie/torbie based cat is either all diluted, or all non-diluted. The basic tortie/torbie types are:


    (non-dilute types)
    Tortie/torbie - the regular one, red tabby + black solid/brown tabby (brown tabby = tabby with black stripes on brown background)
    Chocolate tortie/torbie - red tabby + chocolate solid (dark brown)/chocolate tabby (dark brown stripes on light brown background)
    Cinnamon tortie/torbie - red tabby + cinnamon solid (reddish brown)/cinnamon tabby (red-brown stripes on beige background)


    (dilute types)
    Dilute (blue) tortie/torbie - cream tabby + blue solid (slate gray)/blue tabby (dark gray stripes on light gray background)
    Lilac tortie/torbie - cream tabby + lilac solid (light grayish brown)/lilac tabby (light grayish brown stripes on gray/beige background)
    Fawn tortie/torbie - cream tabby + fawn solid (light brownish/orangish beige)/fawn tabby (beige stripes on lighter beige background)


    A mixed cream tabby/brown tabby cat isn't normally possible, because cream is diluted and brown tabby (as in, tabby with black stripes) is non-diluted.
    This doesn't mean that you absolutely can't have a character with that coloring though - there's still a way.
    If someone asked for a litter where one of the parents was part brown tabby and part cream tabby, we would assume that it was a chimera, i.e. two embryos with different genotypes merged in utero and grew into a single cat, which is what we usually assume for any otherwise-impossible color combination. This can and has actually happened irl (although it is rare) - under the spoiler is a photo of a cream tabby/black solid chimera cat.

    However, if you breed a chimera cat, it only passes on one of its two genotypes. So it would either breed like a brown tabby, or like a cream tabby, but not both.


    Alternatively, you could make the cat a lilac torbie, since it would be lilac tabby and cream tabby and lilac is visually kind of brownish. (I can't find a good photo of a lilac torbie cat but here's a lilac tabby so imagine that but with patches of cream tabby.) That would kind of keep a similar aesthetic except without the black stripes.

  • [center][fancypost= 0px; width: 378px; text-align: justify; font-size: 8.5pt; line-height: 1.4;]Woah, thanks !! That's a lot of information but I understand pretty well, I think! Yeah, that makes a whole lot more sense than what I was picturing before :>


    You're an angel, Patch !!! <333