Thursday, July 10, 2014

What Color Is Sisawat?

(Reclaimed from Bubblews, where a blurry but color-true photo of the kitten Sisawat originally appeared with this post.)

My half-Siamese kitten Sisawat started out looking as if she were going to become a classic Blue Point Siamese, at least as far as her color was concerned (she's certainly a mixed breed). Did not happen. Her coat darkened rather evenly, and although I can still see the "points" in some lights, basically she's the sort of uniformly dark gray cat that's called "blue" (defined by cat fanciers as "diluted black," meaning she's inherited one gene for black fur and one gene for partial albinism or "color dilution").

Someone asked whether the color was called Lilac Point. I've heard that expression and never been sure of its precise definition, so today I looked it up at en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siamese_cat.

It seems there are four official Siamese cat color patterns recognized by the American Siamese cat breeders' organizations: Seal Point (dark brown), Chocolate Point (lighter brown), Blue Point (dark cool gray), and Lilac Point (defined as a paler, warmer gray). Flame Point, Red Point, Lynx Point, and some other mutations are recognized as color patterns that American Shorthairs can have, but apparently they're considered to involve too much crossbreeding for cats that are shown and sold as Siamese.

Sisawat is the kind of cat that tends to be abandoned (or even euthanized) by breeders of pedigreed cats because she's not a perfect specimen of a special genotype. Luckily for her, all I ask her to be is a good pet, social cat, and if possible a good hunter. She doesn't have to be beautiful--although she is.

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