Cats: are there an infinite number of fur, color and texture combinations?

Cat coloration is a sex-linked polygenic phenomenon. Only females can have more than two colors. The shades are what makes things seem so complex. Explaining the genetics would be complex, and would probably bore you, and would mean I had to get out my notes from last semester, but basically, there are genes that code for color, and then genes that code for saturation of the particular hue, so, because of shading, the results look infinite.

…........ infinite….... [NOT] ......... there are identical twins, triplets, ....... etc….

… even without the twins/triplets,etc. .......... the number is not infinite….... but it would be a very large number…....... ! e.g. it would be larger than a googol! ... and larger than a googolplex.

e.g. What’s a googol?
A googol is a 1 with a hundred zeroes behind it. We can write a googol using exponents by saying a googol is 10^100.

The biggest named number that we know is googolplex, ten to the googol power, or (10)^(10^100). That’s written as a one followed by googol zeroes.

YES, ............. google.com made a realistic play-on-the-word, googol

I am so confused. I thought @tinyfaery was asking about kitty-cats.

I don’t know if there is an infinite number of fur, color and texture combinations but I do know that any cat can produce an infinite amount of fur.

@pdworkin…the inclusion of the phrase ‘infinite possibilities’ in the ‘Topics’ , above, overwhelmed my specificationation abilities….......... < apologies >

Big Brother Alert! someone wants to sequence all the cat patterns in the world so he can force them all to carry ID cards!!!

my guess would be there is some kind of limit, and if any of the two have no limit i would say dogs, simply because they are way more diverse.

i supose how close you are willing to look is also a factor, even in twins. i doubs cat twins have every last hair in the sample place or color, and if they do. i sure bet they are not identical on an atomic level :P

I wouldn’t say infinite, but a very large amount of possible combinations, yes.

Probably the equivalent in biological terms of a fingerprint in humans.

Yes – and I’m allergic to them all. ::sniff::

Milo here; I am the only perfect color scheme; which is coordinated with my top hat, white tie and tails (make that tail.) All the others are envious mutants and, while undoubtedly charming and lovable, clearly second-tier.

http://i42.tinypic.com/11rf48j.jpg

@gailcalled Clearly, Milo is top tier, but does he have a halloween costume? (Molly needs to know)

@gailcalled what a CUTIE PIE!!!!!!!

@virtualist: Wow, dude. Next time, ease up on the excessive ellipses.
You’re posting all over with them, chill. No one pauses that much.

The most common pattern I have seen is the grey tabby with an “M” in the middle of the forehead. None of them are exactly the same, though. Even when I see a cat that looks like my cat (white with black) there is some difference, even if I have to look really hard to find it. It is hard to believe there could ever be exact natural copies.

@chyna: Milo here; Molly is probably more amenable to being dressed up or dressed at all than I am. Gail is planning to buy me an expensive tin of Norwegian sardines; that much I know.

Molly, are you going to let Chyna humiliate you? We have a union, if you’d like to join…
Pets Against Stupid Humans aka PASH.

@gailcalled The halloween contest for Molly is tomorrow. I’ll let you know if she wins. She is not too thrilled about it.

Apparently there are nine major genes for fur color in the domestic cat. Fur length and style, ear type, and tail type genes are controlled by at least another 10 major genes. That means at the very least there would be 20 X 19 X 18 X 17 X 16 X 15 X 14 X 13 X 12 X 11 X 10 X 9 X 8X 7 X 6 X 5 X 4 X 3 X 2 possible variations, or 2,432,902,008,176,640,000 different coat colors and types, aka a whole bunch, aka 2 quintillion variations.

That is a lot.

Some years ago I read an interesting article about tracking human migration through coat color distribution of local cat populations in Scientific American. If you go to page 59 in Man and animals: living, working, and changing together you can see an example. In this case it is the distribution of the sex-linked orange gene in Europe. Dr. Neil B. Todd has done much of this work.

Much lurve @Darwin!

Until a paisley cat is born I’m going to assume that there aren’t infinite fur possibilities.

I want a plaid cat!

@Darwin:Granted that I am rusty, but wouldn’t that be 20! or 2.43290201×10^18? All that typing. Milo suggests you soak your wrists in warm water.

@gailcalled – Probably, but I never said I was a math major.

Infinite combinations, no. Many many many combinations, yes.

(multiply all these numbers, which are for color and pattern)
10 white, black, blue, chocolate, lilac, cinnamon, fawn, red, cream, amber
7 solid, mackerel, classic, spotted mackerel, spotted classic, ticked, ticked tabby
5 colorpoint, sepia, mink, solid, tortie-point, tabby-point
2 tortoiseshell, calico
2 tabico, torbico
3 piebald, solid, tabby
5 shaded, shell, smoke, golden, silver
=
525

and then take into account that the
“10 white, black, blue, chocolate, lilac, cinnamon, fawn, red, cream, amber” should really be 13, since there are at least four different shades of orange (sandy/lemon, ginger, marmalade/orange, red)
“3 piebald, solid, tabby” should probably be more like 10, since there are degrees of how much white a cat has (and names for each)
and the
“7 solid, mackerel, classic, spotted mackerel, spotted classic, ticked, ticked tabby” should probably be more like 10, since spotted housecats’ spots can come in different sizes and densities
and
that there are unusual markings like “cat dorsal stripes”
and
there can be “black spot somatic mutations”
and
there can be “chimera cat” where two kittens in the womb become one
and
8 that my math doesn’t even take into account all the genes that the bengals and other hybrid cat breeds add to the mix like satin glitter, mica glitter, charcoal, rust, etc
and
that I haven’t even begun to cover hair length 6 (hairless, sleek, short, semi-long, long, extra long, and more) or texture 5 (straight, curly, kinky, wavy, wiry, and more)
and then the total number of combinations is
=
46,800,000
Which is so many that it might as well be infinite, even though it actually can be counted and numbered.

(I don’t include hairless in the math because that I don’t know if say, satin glitter genes show up on the skin of a hairless cat or if the genes are expressed only in the fur.)
I also haven’t included ear shapes or tail lengths. Even ignoring them, my calculations are still too low.
http://messybeast.com/colours-conformation-index.htm

If you want to learn about cat colors and patterns, just go to where i learned all my knowledge: www.messybeast.com/
Whether you want simple explanations (http://messybeast.com/colours.htm) or fancy genetic terms (http://messybeast.com/colour-charts.htm), this site will teach you.

Oh, and you’re going to LOVE this chart called “guide to housecat coat colors and patterns”.
https://information2share.files.wordpress.com/2011/06/guide-to-housecat-coat-colors-and-patterns.jpg

P.S. Anything I put in “quotation marks” is a phrase that you can copy and paste into google or yahoo and find stories or pictures of EXACTLY what I’m talking about.

Great answer. Wow.