TABBY CATS
Does your cat look like a little tiger? That’s a tabby!
Tabby tip: All tabbies have extra-fine lines on their face with expressive markings at the eyes, and a distinctive tabby “M” on their foreheads.
If you think your little tabby friend has a striped coat, you’re almost right. Each individual hair is striped with alternating bands of dark and light. This color banding is called “agouti” and is reminiscent of the hairs of rabbits and squirrels.
Special characteristics define the four tabby types:
MACKAREL TABBY
Narrow stripes that run parallel down its sides are the hallmark of the Mackarel Tabby. This is the cat most commonly referred to as a tiger cat.
• Sgt. Stripes
• Mackarella
• Agouti
CLASSIC TABBY
The Classic Tabby, called the Blotched Tabby in Great Britain, is a feline marble cake with bold, dark swirls forming marbled patterns on its sides.
• Count Orlov - Catherine the Great’s lover for whom she built the Marble Palace
• SwirlGirl
• Travertine - a type of marble
Fun fact: The most common marble (the kind you shoot, not the kind you walk on) is called a Cat’s Eye