Sadly, tabby cats are often overlooked or taken for granted. Tabbies are considered friendly, happy-go-lucky cats, intelligent, very affectionate and wonderful companions. A non-religious version suggests that the M is a set of frown lines, the result of a cat staring at a mousehole in concentration, waiting for a mouse to emerge.In gratitude, the Virgin Mary marked the cat’s face with the first letter of her name. Christians believe that when newborn baby Jesus wouldn’t stop crying, a cat climbed into the manger and started to purr, sending him off to sleep. It is said that the M marking on the forehead of the tabby cat was created when he rested his hand on the brow of his favourite cat. The prophet Muhammad, the founder of Islam, was an acknowledged cat lover.There are several ideas about how these markings came about. One distinguishing feature of tabbies is their facial markings that include a distinctive M on their foreheads and expressive pencil-thin striped markings around the eyes that look a little like eyeliner. The pattern on a kitten at birth will remain as such throughout its life, and will never change. Some have more elaborate markings, such as bracelets, necklaces or butterflies across the shoulders. They have bars or stripes on the legs, buttons down the tummy and rings around the tail. All tabbies have a spine line down the center of the back. The lab is affiliated with the Stanford University department of Genetics in California and the HudsonAlpha Institute for Biotechnology in Alabama.Tabby is not a specific breed but describes a coat pattern that can come in many different shades and colours. Kelly McGowan, both senior scientists in Dr. These findings expand what we know about how different coat patterns can form and could be applicable to many animals besides domestic cats. Certain cat breeds have mutations in this gene, which could explain their different coat patterns.įormation of coat pattern is an old mystery in biology, and the genetics behind the coat patterns that define different breeds of cats are unknown in many cases. Going one step further, the scientists found that even before the skin shows thick and thin areas, skin cells that will form a thicker skin area express a particular gene called Dkk4. By looking at skin samples from embryonic cats that have this mutation, the researchers could tell that the stripes of thicker skin correspond to what will become darker fur and the thin skin areas to light fur. Some cats have a genetic mutation that causes thicker stripes of dark hair. The thick and thin skin areas matched the striped hair color pattern that tabbies have, but the researchers could not yet tell whether the thick skin areas would turn into light or dark stripes. They observed that even before hair follicles started to develop, certain areas of skin had a thicker top layer. How do hair follicles in different regions of skin know what type of melanin to make to create a stripe pattern? Researchers noticed the first clue when looking at skin samples from embryonic cats. Now, scientists have discovered more about how tabby cats get their stripes.įur stripes are formed from hair follicles that produce different colors of hair, and hair color is determined by what type of melanin, the same pigment that causes different skin colors in people, the hair follicle uses. Until recently, we didn’t know how these complex stripe patterns came to be during development. Anyone who has a cat can tell you that they have a huge variety of different coat patterns, from solid colors to intricate stripes and spots.
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