Colors In pictures

A big THANK you to all the breeders out there breeding such lovely cats, Special thank`s to all my breeder friends who gave me the upportunity to pick whatever I wanted from your own homepage/facebook. You were all to big help to finished it. And also thanks aloth to the members from the facebookgroup "Maine Coon i Norge" for all the pictures you gave me. Whitout all your photos this would not be possible.

BLACK COAT n: In order for a cat to be solid black, both of its parents need to have the black color gene. The color gene , called an allele , for black is known as B. … So for a cat to be solid black, it must also carry a recessive gene known as a non-agouti (a), so that the tabby pattern doesn’t appear.

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Red/Orange d: (O) – this is a mutation on the X chromosome and is thus sex-linked. The gene eliminates all melanin pigment (black and brown) from the hair fibres, replacing it with phaenomelanin, a lighter compound appearing yellow or orange depending on the density of pigment granules. The O allele is also epistatic over the non agouti genotype; that is, the agouti to non-agouti mutation does not have a discernible effect on red or cream coloured cats, resulting in these self-coloured cats displaying tabby striping independent of their genotype at this locus. This explains why you can usually see some tabby pattern on red and creme coloured non-agouti cats, even if only on the head/face. Rufus polygenes, as yet unidentified, affect the richness of the orange gene’s expression.

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White Spotting or “piebald-spotting” (S) – is the «piebald-spotting» gene – a second gene that affects melanocyte migration. S and s are incompletely dominant alleles. In ss animals, melanocytes migrate evenly to the ventral surface of the animal, so the cat is completely pigmented. Ss animals have less than 50% white fur and SS animals have white patches on more than 50% of the body.

Black and White:

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Red And White:

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Tabby patterning genes – Traditionally it had been believed that the three forms of tabby pattern were inherited as an allelic series; however it now appears as if at least two, and probably three, different loci are responsible for the various tabby patterns (Lorimer, 1995).
At one locus are the alleles for mackerel and blotched (classic) tabby patterns with mackerel dominant to classic; at another locus is the Abyssinian or ticked pattern, which is epistatic (masking) to both mackerel and blotched; and at the third locus there appears to be a modifying gene for either the classic or mackerel patterns resulting in the spotted tabby pattern. The patterns can be summarised as

Classic– 22 a mutation of the mackerel allele recessive to all other tabby patterns which gives a blotched pattern with the characteristic “butterfly” motif across the shoulders and “oysters” on flanks.

Black Tabby with or without white

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Mackerel/Tigre 23 the basic striped tabby pattern that overlays the agouti base (ie “wild” form)

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Ticked 25: an incompletely dominant gene which removes most of the stripe pattern
leaving the ticked agouti base pattern on the body with minimal overlaying stripes on legs, chest (necklace) and face.

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Spotted 24: current thinking is that it is likely that a specific single gene causes the
spotted tabby pattern, breaking up the mackerel or classic pattern into elongated or rounder spots respectively.

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Dillute: a recessive gene which reduces and spreads out the pigment granules along
the hair-shaft and turns a black to blue, chocolate to lilac, cinnamon to fawn and red to
cream.

Blue a:

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Blue Tabby a 22

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Creme e:

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Silver: appears to reduce or eliminate the production of pheomelanin or yellow pigment in the cat’s hair. Generally considered a dominant trait, one copy can cause the loss of pigment, but likely a cat with two copies of the mutation may have less “ruffusing” or “tarnishing” as well. On a tabby cat, the black banding will appear but the yellow bands are devoid of coloration. Cats that are non-agouti (aa) and are solid, will appear as smokes, with white at the base of the hair when they have the silver mutation.

Black Smoke ns:

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Red Smoke ds:

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Silver Tabby :

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Shaded 11 : These cats are tabbies with diffused markings + inhibitor + lesser degree of wide-band. They may be ticked tabby or may have a diffused classic or mackerel pattern. The colour extends about half way down the hair shaft.

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Shell /Tipped 12 : Tipping 1/8 of the hair and the tipping should be as even as possible 

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Black Tortie f : (with or without silver)

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Blue Tortie g :

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White w : Dominant White is called the “dominant-white” gene because it is an epistatic gene. Before melanocytes can start making fur pigment, the melanoblasts must migrate to the skin. Melanoblasts make it to the skin only in ww (homozygous recessive) animals. In WW or Ww animals, the skin lacks melanocytes and the cat is a solid white color (W is a completely dominant allele). The epistatic dominant white phenotype masks other pigment traits. A cat that has any colour in its fur will be ww.

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01.Van

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02.Harlequin

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03.Bicolor:

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09.Unspecified amount of white

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Y. Golden

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See more at the link to Maine Coon Education. There is also more pictures of Golden Maine Coon cats.

And thank`s again for alle the poto you have shared with me 🙂