Ocicat Colours
Ocicat coats are produced by the action of a gene modifying an underlying tabby pattern to produce the wild spots that lend the breed their great looks. Coat colours come in three main varieties but can then be modified to produce another nine beautiful colour combinations, each of the three main colours as dilutes and each of the six main and dilutes colours as silvers.
The three "main" colours:
Tawny - Black spots on a bronze base.
Cinnamon - Reddish spots on ivory.
Chocolate - Brown spots on tan.
From top: Tawny, Cinnamon and Chocolate
Image credit: Pikes Peak Ocicats, USA
Silvers
Each of these coat varieties can then be acted on by the "silver" gene, which removes the background coat pigment and leaves a shimmering silver strand as the base colour. These striking little beauties come in each of the three previous colours.
Dilutes
The three base and three silver coat colours can be affected by another gene which "dilutes" the main colour, producing a lighter coat with a distinctly different look for a total of twelve possible combinations overall!
The dilute colours are:
Blue - Dilute tawny.
Blue Silver - Dilute black and silver.
Lavender - Dilute chocolate.
Lavender Silver - Dilute chocolate silver.
Fawn - Dilute cinnamon.
Fawn Silver - Dilute cinnamon silver.
Dilutes
The three basic and three silver coat colours can be affected by another gene which "dilutes" the main colour, producing a lighter coat with a distinctly different look for a total of twelve possible combinations overall!
The dilute colours are:
Blue - Dilute tawny.
Blue Silver - Dilute black and silver.
Lavender - Dilute chocolate.
Lavender Silver - Dilute chocolate silver.
Fawn - Dilute cinnamon.
Fawn Silver - Dilute cinnamon silver.
Ocicat coats are produced by the action of a gene modifying an underlying tabby pattern to produce the wild spots that lend the breed their great looks. Coat colours come in three main varieties but can then be modified to produce another nine beautiful colour combinations, each of the three main colours as dilutes and each of the six main and dilutes colours as silvers.
The three "main" colours:
Tawny - Black spots on a bronze base.
Cinnamon - Reddish spots on ivory.
Chocolate - Brown spots on tan.
From top: Tawny, Cinnamon and Chocolate
Image credit: Pikes Peak Ocicats, USA
Silvers
Each of these coat varieties can then be acted on by the "silver" gene, which removes the background coat pigment and leaves a shimmering silver strand as the base colour. These striking little beauties come in each of the three previous colours.
Dilutes
The three base and three silver coat colours can be affected by another gene which "dilutes" the main colour, producing a lighter coat with a distinctly different look for a total of twelve possible combinations overall!
The dilute colours are:
Blue - Dilute tawny.
Blue Silver - Dilute black and silver.
Lavender - Dilute chocolate.
Lavender Silver - Dilute chocolate silver.
Fawn - Dilute cinnamon.
Fawn Silver - Dilute cinnamon silver.
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Black
Silver |
Chocolate
Silver |
Cinnamon
silver |
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Dilutes
The three basic and three silver coat colours can be affected by another gene which "dilutes" the main colour, producing a lighter coat with a distinctly different look for a total of twelve possible combinations overall!
The dilute colours are:
Blue - Dilute tawny.
Blue Silver - Dilute black and silver.
Lavender - Dilute chocolate.
Lavender Silver - Dilute chocolate silver.
Fawn - Dilute cinnamon.
Fawn Silver - Dilute cinnamon silver.
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Blue
|
Lavender
|
Fawn
|
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Image: Where did Ocicats come from?
Virginia Daly was an American cat breeder who kept many types of cats. She especially appreciated the Siamese for their intelligence and loving temperament and spent a few years breeding Siamese of all colour varieties. Her experiments with colour led her to try crossing cats of various breeds seeking to bring coat and colour traits from one breed into another. This ruffled feathers amoung the more conservative of the cat breeding community and the comment was made that "next she will be trying to breed an Abysinnian (agouti) pointed Siamese".
Virginia took the words as a challenge and cross bred a ruddy Abysinnian male called Dalai Deta Tim of Selene to a seal point Siamese queen known as Dalai Tomboy Patter, who she described as "Kind of big and horsey for a Siamese even back then [when Siamese were a larger cat than todays slighter styles]". The kittens were all abysinnian typed with ticked (agouti) coats and Virginia kept a female from that litter called Dalai She. This abysinnian/siamese hybrid was bred to a champion chocolate point Siamese named Whitehead Elegante Sun, or Sunny for short. This mating produced the agouti pointed siamese that Virginia was looking for along with an unexpected bonus, a lovely golden spotted male called Tonga who was the first ocicat. Sunny and She were the foundation cats of the Ocicat breed.
Not realising what she had made, Virginia sold Tonga with a desexing agreement. Later she was to repeat the experiment when a geneticist commented "Someone should try to recreate the Indian Fishing Cat" from domestic stock, the spotted wildcat who was the main ancestor of todays domestic feline. Virginia realised she had done exactly that and decided to pursue the creation and expansion of the breed her daughter dubbed the Ocicat after the Ocelots they so much reminded her of.
Early ocicats were extensively bred back to Siamese and Abysinnian lines, and the silver coat variety was introduced when Virginia was given the product of an accidental mating between a silver American Shorthair and a Lilac Point Siamese from Olive Duffy at Serendip cattery, and also an accidental Abysinnian/Amerian shorthair cross from a cattery called Klang.
Virginias idea of an ideal Ocicat was described as follows: "Rangy ... the body type I like is sort of long, [with large ears] ... I don't want the Ocicat to look too "refined", but I want them to have that feral look, which is far away from a round head ... I don't want any kind of pinch or weak chin. My best description of the head is that it's like an egg, but not a short, round egg. A nice 'egg-shaped' head. And I mean from every point, face-on or in profile."
This description and more has been officially codified into the Ocicat Breed Standard which can be found in PDF form at the USA CFA site or in this descriptive article found in Cats and Kittens Magazine.