The Infinite Cat Project - Slide #1288: Seefour - Added 7-30-06

A tabby is a cat with a distinctive patterned coat that features stripes, dots and/or swirling patterns. Tabbies are often mistakenly assumed to be a breed of cat. In fact, the tabby pattern is believed to a naturally occurring feature that may be the original coloration of the domestic cat's distant ancestors. Tabby coloration is found in many breeds of cat, as well as among the general 'moggy' (mixed-breed or mongrel) population. When cats are allowed to breed randomly, the coloration of the population tends toward brown mackerel tabbies with green eyes, leading geneticists to believe that this is the common wild phenotype of the domestic cat.
The word comes from French tabis, which was earlier atabis, and in medieval Latin attabi. The initial origin of the word seems to be from the Attabiyah section of Baghdad where a type of striped silk was made that was later used to describe cats.
The color most recognizable as a tabby is called 'brown tabby' in the US and 'black tabby' in the UK. Technically, the UK term is correct, as brown tabbies are in fact black cats with an agouti gene that causes the fur to break into patterns of black and brown. However, the term 'brown tabby' is entrenched in US speech and unlikely to change.
In cat genetics, pattern is unrelated to color, and so the tabby pattern may occur in any cat color, including tortoiseshell (tortoiseshell tabby cats are often called 'torbies'). White spotting of any level can also appear in combination with tabby patterns.
There are three tabby patterns that have been shown to be genetically distinct: mackerel, classic, and ticked, and a fourth variation, spotted, that is still undergoing debate as to its cause.The mackerel tabby pattern has vertical, gently curving stripes on the side of the body. The stripes are thin and may be continuous or broken into bars and spots on the flanks and stomach. Often, an 'M' shape appears on the forehead. This pattern is also called 'fishbone tabby'. Mackeral is the commonest tabby pattern.
Classic (or 'blotched') tabbies have a similar 'M' pattern on the head, but the body markings are very different, having a whorled and swirled pattern with thicker stripes that make what are referred to as "butterfly" patterns on their shoulders and usually a bulls-eye or oyster pattern on the flank. The legs and tail are more heavily barred and the pattern is variable with respect to the width of the bands.
The ticked tabby pattern produces hairs with distinct bands of color on them, breaking up the tabby patterning into a salt-and-pepper appearance. However, ghost striping or "barring" can often be seen on the legs, face and belly.
The spotted tabby may not be a true pattern, but a modifier that breaks up the mackerel pattern so that the stripes appear as spots; the stripes of the classic pattern may be broken into larger spots. Both large spot and small spot patterns can be seen in the Australian Mist breed.
All of these patterns have been observed in random bred populations.
Many tabbies have a distinct 'M' marking on their forehead. There are several legends about where this came from. One relates that the Virgin Mary bestowed an M on a tabby's head after it helped keep the baby Jesus warm. In another legend, the prophet Mohammed bestowed the marking upon his beloved cat's brow after it warned him of danger, and the M remains today to remind us of Mohammed's blessings upon cats.[1] In reality, neither of these figures would have used a Latin 'M': Mary spoke Aramaic and the first letter of her name is the Hebrew letter Mem (?), and Mohammed's name begins with the Arabic letter Miim(?)..