The golden tabby colour in cats: a case in Turkish Angoras

by Jenni Sairanen

Disclaimer: the author is a PhD student in animal breeding, but this text is not written as a scientific article, but as anessay for fellow cat breeders.

1 Tangerine's Cheyenne (Sirpa) at 10 months, the author’s golden cat

I was inspired to write this piece on golden tabby colour, because quite unexpectedly one of my Turkish Angorakittens (Tangerine’s Cheyenne, or Sirpa for short) turned out to be golden spotted (TUA ny 24). I had not evenrealized it was possible for this colour to occur in this breed. But the older she gets, the more evident her colourbecomes, and it has now been confirmed by several cat show judges. Golden particularly is not an easy colour tophotograph, so many photos here don’t do her justice. The one above is pretty close to what she looks like in reallife. I have tried to include many photos: they are all by me unless stated otherwise.

I did some research over the internet, and found that there have been some previous cases of golden TurkishAngoras. And many of those are linked my kitten’s pedigree.

This piece puts together some general text book knowledge of the inheritance of golden (and silver, to which thiscolour is closely attached), and my own thoughts on the matter. The description of the colour is mainly based on mycat. I would appreciate comments, feedback, additional photos of relatives.

Contents1. Basic inheritance and appearance ...................................................................................................................... 2

2. Closer (and more speculative) look at inheritance.............................................................................................. 4

3. Pedigree analysis ................................................................................................................................................ 4

Parents and grandparents ....................................................................................................................................... 4

Siblings ................................................................................................................................................................... 6

Pedigree .................................................................................................................................................................. 9

4. From kitten to adult – how the golden tabby colour develops ......................................................................... 10

5. Future plans ...................................................................................................................................................... 12

1. Basic inheritance and appearance

What is golden tabby, and how is it different from brown tabby? According to general theory, goldens have the socalled wide band gene, but not the silver gene. Wide band gene basically causes the cat’s base colour (black, blue,etc.) to be expressed only on the tips of agouti hairs (tipping). Silver gene is the inhibitor gene, which changes thenormal yellowish pheomelanin of a brown tabby to a silvery white.

But there seems to be something else going on, too. According to my observations and comparisons between mygolden tabby, Sirpa, and her brown spotted grandmother, Galibe, there are three main things. Wide band, lightcolour on the inner legs and belly, and the colour tone (shade of pheomelanin).

2. Brown spotted TUA (left) and golden spotted TUA (right).

Wide band is something they’ve been breeding for in shaded silvers and chinchillas. In shaded silvers, the wide bandgene (or actually there would be several individual genes), causes only the very tip of the hair to be coloured, andthe base of the hair to be white. In a normal silver cat (as opposed to a shaded silver), in the agouti areas, you shouldsee variating bands of white and black (ticking). Similarly, in a brown tabby, the agouti hairs have bands of yellowand black.

3. Brown tabby hair (with ticking effect) on the left, golden tabby hair (with wide band effect) on the right

Breeders of Persians and British shorthairs have been able to reduce the intensity of tipping to the minimal extremesyou can see in chinchillas by using selective breeding. It has been a long process requiring many generations. Thiswould imply that wide band is in fact a quantitative trait, caused by a large number of genes, and not just one gene.However, I would assume there is at least one major gene (with more impact than the others). Selecting for a rightallele in that gene has provided the starting point in the breeding process for the shaded colours.

4. Shaded silver (left), golden shaded (center) and golden tabby (right) British shorthairs. The BRI goldens appear to have a duller, less redcolour tone than semi-longhair goldens. (photos: catza.net)

Shaded silvers have no detectable tabby pattern, because such a small portion of the hair is coloured. In goldens yougenerally need to reduce the amount of tipping even further, if you want to lose the tabby pattern completely. Agolden tabby has the wide band effect, just not intense enough to totally lose the pattern. You can see the ratherfaint golden stripes or spots on the sides, and the more intense blackish stripes on the legs. On the flanks only a tinyportion, a couple of millimetres , of the tip of the hair is black. In parts, the tipping is difficult to notice unless youlook really closely. The back looks darker, andthe length of the black tip can be up to a quarter of the lenghth of thehair.

The inner legs and belly look like they belong to a silver cat. The base is white, and the stripes are black.

5. The inner legs and belly are white with black stripes and spots.

Otherwise, compared to a brown tabby’s yellowish shade of pheomelanin, a golden has a red shade. Rich apricot onthe sides, and deep red on the back. This best describes the goldens in natural semi-longhair breeds. It seems insome breeds they have selected for more yellowish goldens. After all, the colour tone is just a matter of quantitativegenetics: it may also be possible for a regular brown tabby to have a very warm, reddish tone, near to the base toneyou see on goldens.

The tip of the tail is black, as well as the tips of the ears. The paw pads are also black, but the black area does notextend up to the heels. The eyes are greenish, getting a deeper and deeper green shade as the cat ages.

What I find striking, is how close this pattern of lighter inner legs and belly and a very warm tone in the upper body,is to the coloration of some wild felines, such as tigers.

2. Closer (and more speculative) look at inheritance

First, it’s important to realize that you can only observe the phenotype caused by the wide band gene(s) on an agouticat. For instance, a solid black cat does not have agouti hair, so you cannot see how wide the agouti bands are. Still,all cats, including the solid ones, have some combination of alleles of the wide band genes in their genome. Theymay a have combination that causes the shaded silver/golden phenotype, or a combination that causes the regulartabby phenotype.

You only get a hint of a solid cat’s wide band genotype by looking at his or her agouti offspring and ancestors. Whena solid-coloured cat that has the alleles that cause extreme wide bands, has offspring with a regular silver cat, part ofthe offspring may be shaded silvers or golden tabbies or both. Since there is variation in the wide band trait, some ofthose offspring would grow to have “clearer” wide band coats than some others, and some would be without widebands. Furthermore, if we mate two “mediocre” wide band individuals, we may end up with both clear andmediocre wide bands as well as non-wide band individuals.

But does one of the parents of a golden cat always need to be silver or golden? In practice, that is the generalassumption. If considering the wide band factor alone this does not need to be so, but there appear to be otherfactors present that need to come from the golden or silver parent.

The general assumption in the inheritance of silver is that there is only one major gene for silver, and the silver alleleis dominant over the non-silver allele. However, it has proven difficult to locate this gene and develop a genetic testfor this trait. Quite possibly there are other factors contributing to the silver coloration in addition to that one majorgene. They may or may not be the same factors associated with some of the features of golden.

3. Pedigree analysis

Parents and grandparentsSirpa, or properly Tangerine's Cheyenne, was born on the 18th of September 2013. Her father is Tangerine’s Bodyand Soul, a black and white cat (n 03), whose parents are Benito Rosa Glauca (n 01) and Josmarin Galibe (n 24).There is not much chance of confusion for their respective colours. The father is most definitely black and white, andthe grandmother is indeed brown spotted (with a warmish tone, or so I used to think until Cheyenne and herbrothers were born). The grandfather has an extreme van pattern, he has black colour only on his tail. I cannot 100%rule out smoke, but he is definitely not an agouti cat though.

6. The father: Tangerine's Body and Soul (Photo: Tessa)

7 The father's mother: Josmarin Galibe (TUA n 24) 8 The father's father: Benito Rosa Glauca (TUA n 01) (photo: Sofia Holmberg)

Sirpa’s mother is Sada Ramona Rydy. Ramona has a more puzzling colour. She is registered g 23, blue-creammackerel tabby. She has many features of a silver cat, though. The insides of her legs are white with contrasting bluestripes, her belly is white with some spotting, and the underside of her tail is white. In the age of four years she nowhas beautiful green eyes. Ramona’s mother is Sada Oona Orkidea, a silver tortie mackerel tabby (fs 23). I have nophoto of her, but I’ve seen her, and she is clearly silver. Ramona’s father is Nazarlik Sakinmaz, a cream boy (e). Hecould also be a cream smoke.

9 The mother: Sada Ramona Rydy (registered as TUA g 23), from 8 months to 4 years

10 The mother's father: Nazarlik Sakinmaz (TUA e) (photo: catza.net)

SiblingsRamona has given birth to 11 kittens total, six of them in the same litter as Sirpa. In her first litter with a white maleshe had five white kittens, four males and one female. All of them had dark kitten caps (but the markings were smalland faint, could have been black, blue or silver). In Ramona’s second litter, along with Sirpa (golden spotted, ny 24),there were five boys. The first kitten in this litter was unfortunately stillborn. He appeared to be a silver mackereltabby with white (ns 03 23), but how he would have turned out we can only guess.

11 The stillborn baby.

I registered one of Sirpa’s brothers as brown tabby (n 22), but he had the exact same golden shade and wide bandeffect as his sister, and could have actually been ny 22. It would be necessary to see adult photos of him to be sure.One of the siblings was brown mackerel tabby with white (n 09 23). He was clearly different from his golden siblings.He had a colder (yet still warm) shade, and he didn’t have the same wide band effect. Then there was a black boy(who turned out black and white, when a tiny white area in his lower belly was discovered), and a black and whitebicolour boy.

Table 1: The colours of the siblings

colour sexKitten 0 ns 03 23 mKitten 1 n 03 mKitten 2 n 09 mKitten 3 n 09 23 mKitten 4 n(y?) 22 mKitten 5 (Sirpa) ny 24 f

Kitten 1: TUA n 03, Caspian. Kitten 3: TUA n 09 23, Carioca. He did not have the wide band effect of his golden siblings, even though he had a warm tone in his coat

Kitten 2: TUA n 09, Cosmo.

Kitten 4: TUA n(y) 22, Charleston. Lovely colour (my favourite of the lot), just like his sister’s, but with the classic tabby pattern, hencedarker.

The peculiar thing about the tortoiseshell mother’s offspring is that even though she has had 11 kittens, none ofthem have been red (the 9 boys) or tortoiseshell (the 2 girls). Even the five white kittens all had dark head markingsas babies. If we don’t count the white girl (about whom I can’t be quite sure), the probability is tiny: 0.5^10=0.1%.However, this cat is clearly phenotypically tortoiseshell, and indeed must be so genetically due to her parents’colours. I assume this is just a strange coincidence that has nothing to do with the genetics of golden.

Pedigree

Table 2: The pedigree of Tangerine's Cheyenne

This is based on what I (quickly) found from vangoran.se and pro-cat registry.

Tangerine's Bodyand Soul, TUA n 03

Benito Rosa Glauca,TUA n 01

Cheerioh RosaGlauca, TUA fs 03

24

Feng Shui RosaGlauca, TUA ns 01

Vaha's Yannica,TUA n 09

Dancing QueenRosa Glauca, TUA f

24

Gino Rosa Glauca,TUA ds 11

Vaha's Yannica,TUA n 09

Aimée Rosa Glauca,TUA f 02 21

Bonifác Yildiz, TUAes 03 23

Dancing QueenRosa Glauca, TUA f

24

Gino Rosa Glauca,TUA ds 11

Vaha's Yannica,TUA n 09

Josmarin Galibe,TUA n 24

Wi'nte Sams HarryBoy, TUA n 24

Mulaï II de SaintGlinglin, TUA n 23

Phoenix de SaintGlinglin, TUA ds 25

Zahava de SaintGlinglin, TUA f 22

Bashar de SaintGlinglin, TUA as 22

Rosé Supérieur deSaint Glinglin, TUA

ds 09 25

Phoenix de SaintGlinglin, TUA ds 25

Josmarin Eldem,TUA w 62

Nazarlik ParaliPrens, TUA w 62

Elekatin Katerine,TUA n 24

Kuutuulen Kedar,TUA ns

Wi'nte Sams LittleFreddie, TUA ns

Wi'nte Sams TawnyRose, TUA f

Sada Ramona Rydy,TUA g(s?)23

Nazarlik Sakinmaz,TUA e

Sada Niilo Boy,TUA n

Wi'nte Sams RobinRoy, TUA d 24

Wi'nte Sams TawnyRose, TUA f

Kissduurin BaharZerlina, TUA f

Nazarlik Ourania,TUA w 61

Cat Napper'sSvengali-of-

Nazarlik, TUA w 63

Nazarlik Lolita, TUAes 24

Nazarlik Ibtisam,TUA e 23

Nazarlik EdaMisafir, TUA f 23

Sada Oona Orkidea,TUA fs 23

Josmarin Ashraf,TUA ns 23

Kuutuulen Kedar,TUA ns

Wi'nte Sams LittleFreddie, TUA ns

Wi'nte Sams TawnyRose, TUA f

Elekatin Gisella,TUA f 09 24

Sada Niisku Lady,TUA f 23

Wi'nte Sams RobinRoy , TUA d 24

Wi'nte Sams TawnyRose, TUA f

Kissduurin BaharZerlina, TUA f

•Full sibling to a golden

•Parent to a golden/goldens

•Grandparent to a golden

•Assumed golden carrier

•Interesting colour in photos, but perhaps not golden?

On the father’s side of the pedigree there are particularly many links to golden colored cats. Angel Rosa Glauca (fullsister to Aimée Rosa Glauca, grandmother to the father), is definitely golden based on photos on the internet. I maylater add some photos of her and other interesting cats in the pedigree here, if I get permissions from the owners.The father’s father (Benito Rosa Glauca) is line bred to the very cats that have produced golden. He’s not an agouticat (so we can’t see his wide band genotype), so I assume he carries “golden”, and has passed it on to his son(another non-agouti cat).

Also the father’s mother (Josmarin Galibe) has links to golden cats, but those are further away, and behind agouticats that don’t appear to have the wide band phenotype. Still, without full knowledge of the inheritance of the trait,I can’t rule out the possibility, that he may have inherited some factors contributing to the golden colour also fromhis mother’s side. In the vangoran.se database Phoenix de Saint Glinglin has two daughters and a granddaughterregistered golden (there are some photos, as well).

The mother’s pedigree has only some pretty far-fetched links to goldens, but they are included for the sake ofcompleteness. My guess would rather be that the mother is just a (low grade) silver cat, who happens to have thatsomething that makes it possible to have golden kittens with the right mate.

4. From kitten to adult – how the golden tabby colour develops

12 1 day old

Already as a newborn baby she had this very warm look. I also thought it was strange her heels were so light.

13 1 week

The head looked really red at this point. I hoped for a second that maybe she’d be a tortie after all. But then Inoticed her classic tabby brother had the very same red tone in his face, too. Sirpa’s colour did not look particularlyappealing to me. I had been hoping for a tortoiseshell-and-white girl, but the only girl happened to be this messy-coloured creature. If there’d been another girl of any other colour, I would have sold Sirpa as a pet, and wouldprobably never even have realized she was in fact golden.

14. 6 weeks, together with classic tabby patterned brother

With some hindsight, I should have started to consider the golden possibility here. But I had absolutely no idea. I didthink she was getting prettier, though.

15. 4 months.

In her first cat show (at 3.5 months), I first heard the suggestion that she might be golden. I had thought of manyoptions, but not that one. But it made sense.

16. 6 months: together with grandma Galibe (n 24)

The difference to her brown spotted grandmother is huge.

17. 10 months.

Now she has this glorious golden colour. It has developed into its full glory in the last couple of months. She was 8months when a cat show judge first called her golden, and at 10 months the judges seem unanimous.

5. Future plans

I actually thought I’d forsaken all my colour breeding prospects as I chose to keep this girl, who I thought at the timewas just another (and rather messy looking) brown tabby. There were three things I wasn’t sure about her: thecolour, the tail, and the character. The colour was ugly and unclear, the tail seemed short, and she had a strongtemper. It turned out I was wrong on all those accounts: her colour turned golden, her tail grew just fine, and hertemper has developed into this huge self-confidence that she uses to charm the judges and other cats she lives with.

So yes, I will use her in breeding. I love the colour and hope to preserve it. My first plan is to breed her to a silvertabby male. It would be awesome to find a shaded silver or golden male for her sometime in the future, but it doesnot seem feasible, because those colours are so rare. Or perhaps a very warm brown tabby? I will look into it further.

I still have both the parents unspayed, and I intend to let them have another litter together (maybe sometime in2015 or so). Since the mother always seems to produce different colours than I’ve hoped for, I’m sure this time I’lljust end up with a bunch of red boys, but whatever. Realistically, the chances for goldens out of this match are notthat huge; there are loads of other more probable colour possibilities.

For the father, who appears to be a golden carrier, I’d like to find a high-grade silver lady, and see what happens.Luckily he’s been a rather tidy boy, so I expect to keep him unspayed for a few years longer, and there’s no hurrywith this. He is also available for stud for outside females if someone is interested (limitedly, anyway).

I personally find the golden colour very appealing, and many people seem to share this view. I’ve noticed that Sirpaattracts lots of attention in cat shows, mainly because of her colour. And I don’t mean just curious cat showenthusiasts, but the general public. People stop at her cage and tell me they want a cat of that colour, what is itcalled? Well, unfortunately it’s a bit complicated, I keep answering them…