March is one of my favorite months because we feature the remarkable tabby cats then.
Look at cat photo collections almost anywhere, and I'd be willing to bet that the majority of the pictures will be of tabby cats. They've been around throughout history, and can be found in many of the most popular cat breeds, including the glorious Maine Coon. Almost all tabby cats' foreheads are marked with that mysterious "M," and there are legends and stories about how that M appeared. Although tabbies are the most commonly found color pattern, in my book, there is absolutely nothing "common" about the tabby cat.
Photo of Trudy, Photo Credit: © James Mitchell
Comments
Can you do both classic and mackerel tabbies and show the differences?
In order to have a larger photo, I used a format which only has space for one photo. However, here is a photo of a red classic tabby. The whorl on his side is very distinctive as opposed to the striping of the mackerel tabby.
Max and Maggie, our feline children, are both tabbies of the mackerel variety, although Maggie has a lot of the characteristic ‘tipped’ hair with denser undercoat of the agouti variety. Max has a lot of silver tipping too but not as dense a coat and his markings are very distinctive of mackerel tabby.
Tabbies are my favourite breed although not really a breed as they say. The markings are so varied and quite spectacular. Interestingly, I swear I have seen Max’s twin in different photos here at Franny’s forum several times in the past. In fact, ‘Jedi’ in the Tabby section here, could be a long lost relatve : http://cats.about.com/od/catspicturecalendar/ig/2010-March-Tabbies/Jedi.htm