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Grey Tabby Cat – Facts And Fun

When it comes to beautiful cats, the grey tabby cat certainly makes the list. Cat lovers worldwide appreciate these gorgeous kitties for their stunning patterns and smoky to silver fur.

But did you know? The grey tabby is not a specific breed of cat but is a common striped coat pattern that is found in purebred and mixed cats.

What Color Are Grey Tabby Cats?

The grey tabby pattern is most seen in shorthaired cats but can also occur with purebred cats with long coats.

The grey tabby cat’s look and size differ from breed to breed. But when we talk about the grey tabby cat, we know the coat color will be grey. The tabby pattern can consist of: lines, spots, stripes, and swirls.

The gray tabby cats can equally be male and female, while the orange tabby cats are almost always male. But where did that cat get the grey patterns from? Let’s dive deep into the grey tabby cat genetics.

Fur Patterns

There are now different Tabby coat patterns, making many unique-looking Tabby cats to choose as your companion at CatsBuz.

Classic Tabby

The classic Tabby pattern is made up of whorls that create a shape resembling a target on the side of the cat. The classic Tabby is sometimes referred to as a “blotched Tabby.”

Ticked Tabby

You won’t see bands of stripes or spots on a ticked Tabby (otherwise known as Abyssinian Tabby or agouti Tabby cats), except possibly on their legs. But, if you look at their individual hairs closely, you’ll notice that each of them has bands of light and dark coloring.

Why Are There So Many Grey Tabbies?

So, these pretty kitties come in all kinds of shapes and sizes, and there’s lots of potential for variation in their exact color, and the pattern of their stripes. But how did the grey tabby pattern come to be so diverse and widespread? Part of the reason is that the brown-and-grey mackerel tabby was the ‘original’ cat coat. In other words, it is the coat of all domestic cats’ most recent wild ancestor – the African wild cat. So, tabby stripes and grey pigmentation became predictably widespread among pet cats too.

Since then, random genetic mutations have resulted in variations of the layout of their stripes, and also eliminated the production of red pigment, so that once-brown fur becomes grey instead. And these mutations have spread, in part, because we love them and find them beautiful. So we’ve gone out of our way to reproduce them in new generations of kittens.This is the article content. Use this space to tell the detailed story of your article. To edit this content, click on the text and replace it with your own content. Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Massa sapien faucibus et molestie ac.