"Tabby" is not a breed of cat, but a coat pattern found in many official cat breeds, and is very common among the general population of mixed-breed cats around the world.[1] The tabby pattern occurs naturally and is connected both to the coat of the domestic cat's direct ancestor and to those of their close relatives: the African wildcat (Felis lybica lybica), the European wildcat (Felis silvestris) and the Asiatic wildcat (Felis lybica ornata), all of which have similar coats, both by pattern and coloration. One genetic study of domestic cats found at least five founders.[2][3]
The English term tabby originally referred to "striped silk taffeta", from the French word tabis, meaning "a rich watered silk". This can be further traced to the Middle French atabis (14th century), which stemmed from the Arabic term عتابية / ʿattābiyya.[4] This word is a reference to the Attabiya district of Baghdad, noted for its striped cloth and silk;[5] itself named after the Umayyad Governor of Mecca Attab ibn Asid. Such silk cloth became popular in the Muslim world and spread to England, where the word "tabby" became commonly used in the 17th and 18th centuries.[6]
Use of the term tabby cat for a cat with a striped coat began in the 1690s and was shortened to tabby in 1774. The notion that tabby indicates a female cat may be due to the feminine proper name Tabby as a nickname of "Tabitha".[7]
A fifth pattern is formed by any of the four basic patterns being included as part of a patched pattern. A patched tabby is a cat with calico or tortoiseshell markings combined with patches of tabby coat (such cats are called caliby and torbie, respectively, in cat fancy).[1]
All five patterns have been observed in random-bred populations. Several additional patterns are found in specific breeds and so are not as well known. For example, a modified classic tabby is found in the Sokoke breed. Some of these rarer patterns are because of the interaction of wild and domestic genes, as with the rosette and marbled patterns found in the Bengal breed.
The mackerel, or striped, tabby pattern is made up of thin vertical, gently curving stripes on the sides of the body. These stripes can be continuous or broken into bars and short segments/spots, especially on the flanks and stomach. Three or five vertical lines in an "M" shape almost always appear on the forehead, along with dark lines from the corners of the eyes, one or more crossing each cheek, and of course many stripes and lines at various angles on the neck and shoulder area, on the flanks, and around the legs and tail, marks which are more or less perpendicular to the length of the body part. Mackerel tabbies are also called 'fishbone tabbies,' probably doubly named after the mackerel fish.[10] Mackerels are the most common among tabbies.[1]
The classic tabby, also known as blotched tabby, has the 'M' pattern on the forehead but, rather than primarily thin stripes or spots, the body markings are thick curving bands in whorls or a swirled pattern, with a distinctive mark on each side of the body resembling a bullseye. 80% of modern-day cats have the recessive allele responsible for the classic pattern.[11] Black tabbies generally have dark browns, olives, and ochres that stand out more against their black colors. Classic tabbies each have a light-colored "butterfly" pattern on the shoulders and three thin stripes (the center stripe being the darkest) running along the spine. The legs, tail, and cheeks of a classic tabby have thick stripes, bands, and/or bars. The gene responsible for the coloring of a classic tabby is recessive.[11] Many American shorthair cats demonstrate this pattern.[12]
It's thought that the spotted tabby results from a modifier gene that breaks up the mackerel tabby pattern and causes the stripes to appear as spots.[citation needed] Similarly, the classic tabby pattern may be broken by the spotted tabby gene into large spots. One can see both large and small spot patterns in the Australian Mist, Bengal, Serengeti, Savannah, Egyptian Mau, Arabian Mau, Maine Coon, and Ocicat breeds, among others, as well as some crosses. Naturally, the most common spotted tabby looks most similar to the mackerel tabby, including the classic marks on the limbs, tail, and head, as well as the 'M' on the forehead.
The orange tabby, also commonly called red or ginger tabby, is a color-variant of the above patterns, having pheomelanin (O allele) instead of eumelanin (o allele). Though generally a mix of orange and white, the ratio between fur color varies, from a few orange spots on the back of a white cat to a completely orange coloring with no white at all. The orange areas can be darker or lighter spots or stripes, but the white is nearly always solid and usually appears on the underbelly, paws, chest, and muzzle.
The face markings are reminiscent of the mackerel or classic tabby and, with orange/white, inclusion of a white spot on the face that covers the mouth, coming to a point around the forehead. Because a masking gene is present on white fur, its inclusion is often asymmetrical, leading to more or less white fur on each paw or side of the face.[13]
About 80% of orange tabby cats are male.[14] The orange coloring is a gene, found on the X chromosome. Females have XX chromosomes to the male's XY. Thus, both the mother and father cat must pass on the genes to the female, but males only need the trait from their mothers.[15]
Since female cats have two X chromosomes, it is possible for them to have the O (orange) allele on one X chromosome and o (black) on the other. This causes both colors to appear in random patches, either with or without the tabby pattern. When paired with the tabby pattern, these cats are known as torbie cats. If there is also white spotting, the cat is known as a caliby (US English).
Two distinct gene loci, the agouti gene locus (two alleles) and the tabby locus (three alleles), and one modifier, spotted (two alleles), cause the four basic tabby patterns. The fifth pattern is emergent, being expressed by female cats with one black and one orange gene on each of their two X chromosomes, and is explained by Barr bodies and the genetics of sex-linked inheritance.[8][9]
The agouti gene, with its two alleles, A and a,[16] controls whether or not the tabby pattern is expressed. The dominant A expresses the underlying tabby pattern, while the recessive non-agouti or "hyper-melanistic" allele, a, does not. Solid-color (black or blue) cats have the aa combination, hiding the tabby pattern, although sometimes a suggestion of the underlying pattern can be seen ("ghost striping"). This underlying pattern, whether classic, mackerel, ticked or spotted, is most easily distinguishable under bright light in the early stages of kittenhood and on the tail in adulthood.
The mackerel pattern and its Tm allele at the tabby gene locus is dominant over the classic (or blotched) allele, Tb. So a cat with a TmTm or TmTb genotype sets the basic pattern of thin stripes (mackerel tabby) that underlies the coat, while a TbTb cat will express a classic tabby coat pattern with thick bands and a ring or concentric stripes on its sides.
The ticked tabby pattern is a result of a different allele at the same gene locus as the mackerel and classic tabby patterns and this allele is dominant over the others. So a TaTa genotype as well as TaTm and TaTb genotypes will be ticked tabbies. The ticked tabby coat essentially masks any other tabby pattern, producing a non-patterned, or agouti tabby (much like the wild type agouti coat of many other mammals and the sable coat of dogs), with virtually no stripes or bars. If the ticked allele is present, no other tabby pattern will be expressed. The ticked allele actually shows incomplete dominance: cats homozygous for the ticked allele (TaTa) have less barring than cats heterozygous for the ticked allele (TaTm or TaTb).[8]
Since the tabby pattern is a common wild type, it might be assumed that medieval cats were tabbies. However, one writer believed this to be untrue, at least in England. Sometime after the mid-17th century, the natural philosopher John Aubrey noted that William Laud, the Archbishop of Canterbury was "a great lover of Cats" and "was presented with some Cyprus-cats, i.e. our Tabby-Cats". He then claimed that "I doe well remember that the common English Catt, was white with some blueish piednesse [i.e. with grey parts]. The race or breed of them is now almost lost."[20] However, most drawings or paintings of cats in medieval manuscripts do show them to be tabbies.[21]
The tabby picks are actually weaving a plain-weave ground cloth. The pattern weft floats on the face and back of the cloth to make pattern. For the pattern weft to show, it is usually two to three times thicker than the tabby weft. The tabby weft is almost always the same yarn as the warp.
A related building material is tabby, often called coastal concrete, which is basically manmadecoquina. Tabby is composed of the lime from burned oyster shells mixed with sand, water, ash,and other shells. As far back as the 1600s, Spanish and English settlers used tabby to build theirhomes and other structures, and to pave their roads, throughout the coastal Carolinas, Georgia,and Florida.
Original Tabby Shell Stucco was made from a mix of slurry of water, homemade lime, local sand, and oyster shells. Occasionally, aggregates of broken glass, brick or other similar products were added. The mixture was poured into a wooden forms or rectangular bottomless cradles made of finished boards approximately two inches thick. The length of the cradle varied; the height was 20 to 22 inches in the eighteenth century but was reduced to 10 to 12 inches in the nineteenth century to minimize collapse and provide greater strength. The sides were held in place by dovetailed braces. The tabby was tamped and leveled by hand.
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