When choosing a purring pet, people primarily focus on its appearance. It is understandable: the kitten's character has not yet developed, habits, both good and bad, have not been determined, so it remains to rely only on the visual perception of the animal. And if a person chooses a pet among thoroughbred animals, a marble cat will inevitably attract his attention - no other color can compare with it in brightness and brightness.
Marble color
Breeders bred many varieties of colors of the cat tribe. There is a section called tabby in this palette. It combines animals in which the wool is painted in two (rarely three) different colors, and the contrasting shade should be a well-defined pattern. Among them there are spotted, brindle, ticked and harlequin cats, which is considered classic. The main and mandatory features of the latter are the following:
- a mark on the forehead in a second color resembling the letter M;
- eyes and nose circled in the main color;
- alternating rings on the tail and legs;
- on the chest and abdomen, two strips of divided spots, similar to buttons;
- colored stripes on the neck - they are also called necklaces;
- three pronounced wide stripes along the entire back;
- on the shoulders a drawing resembling a butterfly in outline;
- circles, semicircles or symmetrical stains on the sides;
- eyes are deep yellow, closer to orange or a shade of old honey.
Drawings should be clear, not blurry, and the contrast between the primary and second colors should be very sharp.
Color shades
"Marble" can be almost any color that is inherent in cat hair. According to the international classification, the marble color of cats includes the following varieties:
- Black marble. The main background is copper brown, the pattern is black.
- Chocolate Marble. Wool - the colors of milk chocolate, the pattern - dark, bitter chocolate.
- Cinnamon marble. It sounds incomprehensible, it actually means that the first color is honey, and the second resembles a shade of cinnamon sticks.
- Red marble. A classic ginger cat with a more saturated, almost brown color.
- Blue marble. Background - pale beige, pattern - bluish-steel color.
- Purple Marble. One of the rarest. The coat is a shade of lavender, the pattern is steel.
- Tortoise marble. It is even less common than the previous one, and it is inherent only to cats - there are very few cats with this color. A third is added to the two colors, but the pattern is clearly expressed. It can be made in any shades, but most often found in chocolate.
In which rocks is "marble" registered
Almost all short-haired cats have marble varieties of color. In "shaggy" cats, it is difficult to achieve a clear picture precisely because of the length of the coat - visually it spreads out. However, among the Persians, the marble color of cats is still registered. But among the Siberians to get a clear picture did not work out because of the different structure of the wool. There is no such color in the sphinxes. And this is understandable, since they do not have wool. However, the best known cat is the British harlequin (thanks to the TV ad "Wiskas"). Many people who want to get an animal of just such a color call it “whiskas coloration” and do not understand what they say about the marble color. The Scottish marble cat, especially the lop-eared, is also very touching and popular. Maine coons of this color were also bred, and other well-known breeds got it.
How to breed cats with such a pattern
Of all the options for tabby, the marbled color of cats is the most recessive. Therefore, in order to get kittens of the desired color, when crossing both parents, marbling is mandatory - then the kittens will definitely be with the right pattern. Mating is somewhat less effective, in which one of the parents is spotted or brindle. When mating only tigers, all kinds of kittens will be born - and “tigers”, and spotted, and “marbles”, unless, of course, the parents have the right gene. Crossbreeding a tiger producer and a spotted one will give the same results, but a pair of spotted ones will give only marble ones and the same ones.
Marble in the wild
As is already clear from the article, such a beautiful color of the fur in cats by humans is artificially derived. However, even here nature was ahead of people. There is a real, natural marble cat, which has received its color in a natural way. The size of the animal corresponds to its domestic relatives and is extremely similar to them, only the tail is longer than usual for us, since the animal lives on a tree and uses it as a balancer. Only DNA analysis showed that the marble cat is closer to large relatives like lions and tigers. The beast lives with an outlandish coloring in the Nepal zone (northern India and Indonesia), it is still poorly understood (even the numbers are known very approximately), and in captivity it is present in a single copy - in the Thai zoo.