Orange tabby cats, also popularly called ginger, marmalade or tiger cats are fairly common across the many cat breeds but did you know that they have specific features that are only unique to them?
One of our six cats is an orange tabby one and we named him Bobbi. He's a stray kitten who somehow, out of nowhere, found his way into our home and into our lives. We love him for his goofiness and that sweet, naive expression he constantly has.
Now, he was the second cat we adopted into our family and I never knew much about cats back then so when I learned about these facts about orange tabby cats, I was blown away to find that they prove to be true for our Bobbi.
Orange cats are tabbies but not all tabbies are orange.
The term "tabby" refers to the coat pattern which can be stripes, swirls, spots, or splotches and may come in different colours like orange or gray.
Orange cats are tabbies are most likely to be male.
Females have 2X chromosomes while males have XY chromosomes. Because the gene responsible for creating the orange colour is in the X chromosome, both mum and dad cat must pass on the X chromosomes in order for a female cat to be orange. Because it is a rarity, it is estimated that only about 80% of orange tabbies in the world are males.
Orange tabby cats have a distinct marking.
As with all tabbies, regardless of colour, all orange cats have that marking on their foreheads that look like the capital letter M or two letter V's.
Orange tabbies do not have a solid coat.
While the patterns vary in range, you will not find an orange cat with a solid or 100% orange coat. The four common patterns are swirled or also called the classic tabby, striped or mackerel, ticked, and spotted. Even if a cat seems to be purely orange, you will find that upon closer look, the coat actually has a pattern.
Orangeness vary from one tabby to another.
The pigment responsible for an orange tabby cat's colour is called pheomelanin, and depending on the level of pigmentation, the degree of orangeness vary from light orange, also called cream, to a darker tangerine shade.
Orange tabby cats have the reputation of being lazy.
I had to laugh when I read about this as it couldn't be any truer in the case of our very own Bobbi. He must have the lowest energy levels out of all our cats. He doesn't care whether he's on a comfy cat bed or not, he can doze off anywhere when he feels like it. And we often find him asleep in the most awkward, funniest of positions. In fact, his two most-favourite things to do are eat and sleep, which brings us to another orange tabby quality.
Orange tabbies love to eat.
As I already mentioned, our dear tabby cat simply loves food. I'm not sure if that's because he happens to be an orange cat. Needless to say, he's the chubbiest within our cat family so we try to keep an eye out on his diet so he doesn't become overweight.
Now, these last two qualities have to do with behaviour so while I'd say they ring true for our cat, these may not actually be a fact for all orange tabby cats in general. For instance, orange tabby cats are often stereotyped as being derpy and mischievous, which are also behaviours very typical with cats of other colouring. Personally, I think each cat has their own individual qualities and their coat colouring has very little influence, if at all with their behaviour.
Do you have an orange tabby cat, too? Would you say that all of the above qualities of orange tabby cats are true for your cat as well? And if by chance you have a male tabby cat for a companion, please leave a comment, too! We'd love to meet him 😻
*Photos via Unsplash except first image.
