The birth of Acey has brought me back to my book on genetics : Robinson's Genetics for Cat Breeders & Veterinarians.
Her fur color has proved not to be
very easy (for me at least) to determind. I have the breeders of both her parents (Dam and Sire) advicing me, but they can not give me a definite answer either. One reason is that it is not easy to get the exact right fur color on a photograph send by e-mail
to the other side of the planet, and also Acey's fur seems to change color by what light the room has. Sometimes she seems grey (blue) and sometimes she seems to be light brown.
Having a father of the color
solid Chocolate and a mother of the color solid Blue, genetics should be easy, but it is not.
Robinson's :
" The basic laws
of heredity are relatively simple. They can be reduced to two concepts :
1. The law of separation of the genes in the germ cells.
2.
The law of independent assortment of the genes in various crosses. "
In various crosses, yes ! There are dominant genes and there are recessive genes. So even if
the dominant genes will win, you do not know what recessive genes that is hidden from being seen. And what if a recessive gene meets another recessive gene ? Then the kitten can end up with a fur color that was not expected.
There are something called the agouti or non-agouti. Tabby or solid.
There are mutaded colors.
There are diluted colors and dilute modifier. And more.......
All of this gives different results.
That is why a pedigree is a place to look for answers in what colors could be inherited.
My problem is that I only have the mother Nova's pedegree at the moment. And that one
should be a easy one, her ancestors are all solid blue. It is Frosty's , the fathers pedigree, that could hide the answer. Even if he is a solid Chocolate,there are some other colors in his pedigree, tabbies as well. The problem is that the cat
organisation that is sending me a copy of his pedigree has had some problems with their pedigree program. Computer programs are known to cause problems sometimes. But they claim it is in the mail now, on its way to Norway.........................
So I am looking at Acey and thinking is she blue, cinnamon, lilac, fawn, cream, smoke etc ?
Some of these colors have been easy to rule
out, some not so easy.
At the moment Lilac is the one in question, depending on which genetic advise I find on the internet. Lilac is a diluted brown. And one place it says "a rosier shade
of blue", another place " a light taupe grey". The last could fit, but then I find another place that says Lilac cats ALWAYS have the same color on pawpads and nosepads. Well, Acey do not. Her pawpad is quite pink and her nosepad is kind of dark.
So I am not sure any more.........
In short :
A is for tabby, a is for non-tabby.
B is for black, b is brown mutated from black,
D is for dense, dd for dilute.
And there are several more,too. And all matters.................
The genotype of Lilac is aabbdd.
Frosty , a solid Chocolate, might be aabbD- (the dash is for unknown D or d)
Nova , a solid Blue, might be aaB-dd
(the dash for unknown , B or b)
Depending on the unknown, Acey could be Lilac, but the "rosier shade of grey" does not sound right, though.......................
And is she a tabby or is she not ? She has some light stripes on her tail and some darker markings on her forhead that could look something like the letter M, which is a tabby marking. The
rest of her body seems to be of solid color. So are the stripes just "Ghost-markings" that can appear in kittens and later "disappear", or is she a tabby ? But the tabby gene (A) is dominant, so why is not her father tabby then ?
I could wait some months to see how her fur coat develops, but I am strongly thinking about sending her DNA to an animal DNA Lab in Australia !!
No more guessing, up with science ! 