The classic tabby pattern in the Egyptian Mau – some notes for breeders.
By Melissa Bateson.
Kittens with the classic tabby pattern (also referred to as blotched tabbies or marbled tabbies) sometimes occur in Egyptian Mau litters. These kittens can occur in all of the recognised and unrecognised Mau colours. There are therefore six possible colours of classic tabby Mau: black silver, bronze, black smoke, blue silver, blue and blue smoke.
Currently classic tabby pattern Maus are covered by section 5(i) of our Registration Policy, and as such are placed on the Reference Register. They are not formally registered as Egyptian Maus and cannot be either shown or used for breeding Egyptian Maus. A classic tabby pattern Mau therefore cannot legally occur in the pedigree of an Egyptian Mau. At the current time the Egyptian Mau Club has no intention of seeking promotion for the classic tabby Maus.
Most geneticists agree that spotted tabby pattern cats such as the Egyptian Mau are the result of a dominant gene designated Sp that modifies classic (and possibly also mackerel) tabby patterns by breaking them up into spots. Ideally, all Maus should be homozygous for the Sp gene, carrying two copies of it. However, some Maus are known to be heterozygous for the gene, carrying only one copy; these cats are referred to as “classic tabby carriers” because when mated to another classic tabby carrier, one in four of the kittens produced will be classic tabbies. The classic tabby pattern is therefore inherited as a recessive gene in the Egyptian Maus.
At present we know that the following Egyptian Maus imported into the UK are classic tabby carriers:
Emau’s Isis of New Kingdom
J’s Iris Qetesh of New Kingdom
Emau’s Nephthys of New Kingdom
Zonar Hathor
Silver Matrix Pepy
Herkules von Skarabaeus
Given that these cats are not closely related, it appears that the incidence of classic tabby carrying Maus is fairly high.
When a carrier is mated to a non-carrier cat all of the kittens will be spotted, however 50% of the kittens will carry the recessive gene. When two carriers are mated to each other, 25% of kittens will be classic tabbies, and of the spotted kittens 67% will be carriers.
Classic tabby Egyptian Maus are extremely beautiful and are never hard to place in pet homes.