# Question for other owners of black cats **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [January 5, 2004, 10:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/question-for-other-owners-of-black-cats/222895 "2004-01-05T22:58:05Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 9\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![dwyr](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dwyr/32/363_2.png) [@dwyr](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dwyr)\ **Post date:** [January 7, 2004, 2:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/question-for-other-owners-of-black-cats/222895/21 "2004-01-07T02:01:44Z")
My [black long-hair](http://home.earthlink.net/imagelib/sitebuilder/misc/show_image.html?linkedwidth=actual&linkpath=http://home.earthlink.net/~dwyr/sitebuildercontent/sitebuilderpictures/p5300007.jpg&target=tlx_new) is dark as coal all over, except for maybe a dozen white hairs scattered randomly about. She’s been that way as a kitten. (I can also state that she’s been the cause of a number of **my** white hairs.) Although I did notice when she was a kitten she actually had tabby-like stripes, black on black, but you had to have her under a strong light at just the right angle to see them. I’m not sure if she still has stripes or not. My sister had a black long-hair as well, a male. His color seemed to vary with the season. Progressing from black to silvery-frosted back to solid black again. ---
**Author:** ![rocking\_chair](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rocking_chair/32/2918_2.png) [@rocking\_chair](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rocking_chair)\ **Post date:** [January 7, 2004, 2:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/question-for-other-owners-of-black-cats/222895/22 "2004-01-07T02:57:57Z")
dwyr, my winken has the very dark stripes. they can only be seen in very direct sunlight. rather like a black jaguar’s spots. nod the naughty and malenka the miraculous are tuxedo cats and their black is deeper than winken’s. wink has a lightish grey undercoat. ---
**Author:** ![EddyTeddyFreddy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/eddyteddyfreddy/32/18796_2.png) [@EddyTeddyFreddy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/EddyTeddyFreddy)\ **Post date:** [January 7, 2004, 3:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/question-for-other-owners-of-black-cats/222895/23 "2004-01-07T03:40:09Z")
Just about every black cat I’ve owned has had the tiger markings if you looked in the right light. I’d say the tabby coat, so effective as camouflage, is likely the base or default feline pattern, and solid colors would be overlays on it. Can any cat genetics expert conform or refute this? ---
**Author:** ![EddyTeddyFreddy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/eddyteddyfreddy/32/18796_2.png) [@EddyTeddyFreddy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/EddyTeddyFreddy)\ **Post date:** [January 7, 2004, 4:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/question-for-other-owners-of-black-cats/222895/24 "2004-01-07T04:05:07Z")
Just did some searching on cat color genetics, and found [this site](http://www.fanciers.com/other-faqs/color-genetics.html). Another excellent site is[this one](http://www.janecky.com/runyen/bio554/cat/) – scroll down to the link for non-agouti black, in regard to striping of black cats. As far as cats getting white hairs as they age, this article about traditional (round-headed) Siamese gives the breed standards, among which I found this: “_Penalize:_ Improper (i.e. off-color or spotted) nose leather or paw pads. Ticking or white hairs except in aging cats.” So, that would be indirect confirmation that cats can gray with age, wouldn’t you say? ---
**Author:** ![Q.N.Jones](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/3da27b/32.png) [@Q.N.Jones](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Q.N.Jones)\ **Post date:** [January 7, 2004, 5:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/question-for-other-owners-of-black-cats/222895/25 "2004-01-07T05:22:34Z")
My black kitten C.C. (Cosmic Creepers) has white hairs on her chest, the tip of her tail, and a white patch on her lower tummy. They’re longer and wirier than her regular hairs. She’s only 6 months old, so I don’t know if she’ll get more as she ages. ---
**Author:** ![Obsidian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/51bf81/32.png) [@Obsidian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Obsidian)\ **Post date:** [January 7, 2004, 5:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/question-for-other-owners-of-black-cats/222895/26 "2004-01-07T05:26:10Z")
**Rubystreak** , my vet told us that about Siamese, too. The colder temperatures they face during kittenhood, the darker they get. We had a foster kitten who was flame pointed. We asked the vet why his color never progressed any further tham his tail and nose, and he told up it was likely because he’d been born & lived outside, and when he came into our warm house at 6 weeks old, the color stopped. ---
**Author:** ![Eats\_Crayons](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/278dde/32.png) [@Eats\_Crayons](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Eats_Crayons)\ **Post date:** [January 7, 2004, 1:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/question-for-other-owners-of-black-cats/222895/27 "2004-01-07T13:12:32Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Rubystreak \* > \*\*When I got him, he had white spots on his abdomen, in his armpits, and a few on his chest (yep, right in the places that humans get body hair in adolescence-- coincidence? Any other black cat owners’ cats have white hair in those places?). \*\* LittleCat (who is almost entirely graphite grey, not black) has similar markings. Sniffs\_Markers calls her the Naked Lady Cat. Peach coloured underarm hair and pubic triangle by her back legs. ---
**Author:** ![Adjustable\_Beavis](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/6a8cbe/32.png) [@Adjustable\_Beavis](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Adjustable_Beavis)\ **Post date:** [January 7, 2004, 1:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/question-for-other-owners-of-black-cats/222895/28 "2004-01-07T13:16:18Z")
I got Elvis when he was kitten. He had a few white hairs on his throat but otherwise black. Now the old boy is around 14 and has sprouted the gray hairs you describe. ---
**Author:** ![Rubystreak](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e5b9ba/32.png) [@Rubystreak](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rubystreak)\ **Post date:** [January 7, 2004, 10:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/question-for-other-owners-of-black-cats/222895/29 "2004-01-07T22:38:32Z")
**Obsidian** : Is it only in kittenhood that they can get darker? My Siamese guy was outside in the summer as a kitten and was pure white, but after I took him in and got him healthy, he got fatter, and thus he got darker. Now he is covered in brown tabby stripes on a white background (he’s lovely, btw). Theoretically, 'cause I can tell you right now it ain’t gonna happen, if he lost a lot of weight, thus making his fur warmer b/c it’s closer to his body, would he get whiter, I wonder? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/question-for-other-owners-of-black-cats/222895.md?page=1)