Of the nearly 60 million pet cats in the United States, one of the most common is the classic tabby—a coat pattern that features stripes, dots, and swirls and what looks like an M imprinted on the cat ...

Researchers took a deep dive into embryonic development to tease out the source of the tabby pattern in cats. By James Gorman Folklore is full of stories about the coat patterns of cats: How the tiger ...

From where does a tabby cat get its stripes? The same place cheetahs get their spots. A new study finds the same gene that is responsible for the cheetah's color patterns causes a tabby's stripes.

Folktales from across the world have a zillion theories about how the tiger got its stripes. But when it comes to the smaller cousin of the big cats—our familiar furry friends, the domestic cats—there ...

Breakthroughs, discoveries, and DIY tips sent six days a week. Terms of Service and Privacy Policy. Humans have brought cats into their homes for more than 9,000 ...

Tabby cats are often mistaken as a breed, but the word “tabby” refers to a distinct fur pattern that looks like a letter “M” on the cat’s forehead and involves bold stripes across the feline’s body.

When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission. Here’s how it works. How cats get their stripes is a decades-old mystery in the life sciences, senior author Dr.

If told to imagine a "typical" cat, you're doing well if you think "tiger-striped." That's because the tabby pattern, with its familiar stripes, is the most common in all of catdom. It's so dominant ...

Cats with narrow stripes, the so-called 'mackerel' pattern, have a working copy of the gene. But if a mutation turns the gene off, the cat ends up with the blotchy 'classic' pattern, researchers said.