When it’s a cat color of course.
How did cat fanciers come to decide that a grey cat is blue? I have three blue cats myself.
Blue is also a horse colour, where you have blue roans (black with grey/white, IIRC). As with cats like the Russian Blue, it is because of a blue sheen that can be seen in certain light and angles of sunlight.
I’ve seen the blueness of Russian Blues at a cat show. Cat fur has a lot more color to it than you can see even in really good photographs. My black cat is only black until you see him in direct sunlight, then you see some lovely deep reds and browns.
By “Red”, do you mean red, or the orange that cat-fanciers call red?
My own personal red.
There is a difference between grey and blue cats. Not all grey cats are blue. Most are considered grey, but some appear bluish due to the shade and texture of the fur. The latter is the case with Russian blues, but it has more to do with density of the fur and undercoat, than with color.
In some languages, grey is considered a shade of blue. I wonder if there was simply some literal translation involved.
A friend of mine adopted a stray that is a grey/lavendar in certain lights. Even the pads of his paws are purple. Is there a name for that color or is he just a freak?
Another “blue” type of kitty is when you’re talking about Siamese. Blue points are the beautiful white and deep grey ones, while Lilac points have a more pinkish tint to their grey markings.
Sounds like a Lilac cat. Cats have a gene that determines whether their fur can be black, chocolate, or cinnamon (the latter 2 are shades of brown). Another gene determines whether the cat is “color dilute”, in which black becomes gray and chocolate becomes lilac. Cite. The chocolate and cinnamon alleles are less common than the black, so this is an unusual cat.
I have 2 cats of unknown parentage who are both solid grey. One has short coarse fur that’s silvery with slight brown undertones. The other has longer (still shorthair) silkier fur with silvery highlight to it.
Are either of these cats considered “blue”? You can see pictures here:
Smokey (silvery)
Bandit (brownish and silvery)
They appear to be grey, though the lighting makes a difference. In any case, Hello Again, you have very pretty cats.
Here is a picture of a Russian Blue (from russianblue.org) in good lighting, so that it is easy to see the actual blue, almost violet, tint to the coat. As I wrote before, they are not really blue, of course, it is merely a trick of the light, texture, and silvery element of the coat:
http://www.russianblue.org/tica/Silverathena%20Mig_small.JPG
Aw, thanks Steve, they’re the Best Kitties Ever (of course). That photo of the Russian Blue is very interesting, they don’t have that bluish tone to them.