The most commonly occurring are black-based coats. Tabby cats can have a wide variety of coat colors, including brown, gray, cream, and orange. There is an “M” shape on their forehead, along with dark lines on the cat’s cheeks to the corners of their eyes. This pattern has vertical, narrow, curving stripes on the side of the cat’s body, and may be continuous or broken into bars and spots on the cat’s stomach and flanks. The mackerel pattern is the most commonly occurring one, and is the pattern most people think of when they think of tabby cats.
There are actually four basic tabby cat coat patterns: mackerel, ticked, spotted, and classic, which is also referred to as marbled. Cats have always been fashion forward! Tabby cat coats aren’t just one pattern. The term “tabby cat,” meaning “one with a striped coat,” likely came into usage in the late 17th century. This can be traced even further to the Arabic term attabiya, which references Attabiy, a neighborhood in Baghdad where such silk cloth was originally made. The English term “tabby” comes from the translation of the French phrase “striped silk taffeta,” the root of which is tabis, which means “a rich watered silk,” according to the Online Etymology Dictionary. The term “tabby” is believed to have originated from Baghdad.
