Seal Point Siamese with a bit of tabby cat

Photo by NH53 (Flickr)

This is a Siamese cat in Italy; Tuscany in fact. A beautiful part of the world and this is a beautiful, clean standard looking Siamese cat. There is nothing extreme about this cat, which I think is what makes him or her all the more attractive.

What I would like to ask, however, is whether this cat is purebred and whether there is hint of tabby cat lurking inside. You can see the banding on the tail and on the sides of face and in fact on the forehead.

These indicate the presence of the genes that create the tabby cat and the lynx point Siamese cat. I don't know but I would doubt that this cat would do well at cat shows. That is not to criticise. It is more in praise. Perhaps this is normal for Siamese cats but you don't see banding in Siamese cat show cats as far as I am aware.

There is a nice patch of dark fur on the left thigh area. This would indicate that that area is cooler than the rest of the center part of the body. I wonder why.

Siamese Cat Binocular Vision

The Siamese cat is well known for a squint and a kinked tail. Both have been bred out by breeders over the years as they are considered "defects" but they are nonetheless part of this cat breed's heritage. The kinked tail in cat show competition is reason to disqualify the cat as I recall.

There are colorful legends regarding the squint that are usually about Siamese cats who defended temples and valuables. The task was arduous and it caused the cats to develop a squint!

The question on some people's minds is, "does the Siamese cat squint affect normal vision and particularly binocular vision?" Let's first say that it isn't just Siamese cats that have squints but they have a genetic predisposition to acquiring the squint. The cat below is not a Siamese but has a clear squint. Perhaps she is a Siamese mix (lynx point)

Not Siamese but clear squint - Photo by fazen (Flickr)

Cats have two eyes to allow them to judge distance and depth. Two eyes give animals a form of three dimensional vision. This is important to cats in making judgements on tracking objects, jumping and hunting etc.

It transpires that the squint is apparently a compensation for defective wiring of the nerves that go from the eyes to the brain. In normal cats half the optical nerves cross over to the side of the brain opposite to the position of the eye. This provides binocular vision.

In Siamese cats the nerve fibres that were not meant to cross over, do in fact cross over. This causes "the faulty positioning of the retinal map on the tectum". The tectum is a region of the brain, specifically the dorsal part of the mesencephalon (midbrain). The squint cancels out the effects of the faulty positioning on the tectum by "altering the positioning of the retina".

So there you have it. The squint develops over the first six to eight weeks of the kitten's life to make this compensation.

Siamese cat binocular vision is maintained by the famous Siamese cat squint. That's how nature has compensated for a genetically inherited neurological defect. Incidentally, the Siamese and Persian cats have the most genetically inherited diseases and are two of the most long standing purebred cats.

The references are from the New Scientist Aug 17, 1972. Thanks to Google Books.

Funny Siamese Cat

Not sure if this picture is all that funny - more amusing. I added some words to the picture by joanna8555 at Flickr:

The drain was blocked!You can see tabby banding in this Siamese cat's tail. That is non-standard if the Siamese is a seal point but this cat might be a lynx point.

Feral Lynx Point Siamese Cat

Feral Lynx Point Siamese Cat - Photo: by anyjazz65

Here is a picture from a Flickr photographer of an applehead (traditional) feral lynx point Siamese cat. This is interesting I think. Is this a genuine feral cat or a stray purebred traditional Siamese cat?

You do get feral Siamese cats though. It is hard to visualise the such an exotic cat (as it was once described in the early 1900s) being feral and unwanted.

Anyone who likes the appearance of the lynx point Siamese should try and track this cat down and adopt him or her! Of course she is not purebred without documents to prove that but the appearance is very attractive.

Blue Siamese Cats

Blue Point Siamese - Photo by SweetGirl©
This cat has some lynx pointing too.

Blue Siamese cats are not bright blue cats all over! I guess you knew that.....Blue means grey or grey/blue and it is an accepted color for the pointing of Siamese cats. It is one of the original color points going back to the mid 1900s. The other "original" colors are seal, chocolate and lilac. Seal, a dark brown or black, is the classic pointing for Siamese cats. The color blue in the cat fancy is a dilute black.

Blue is produced by the allele d "in the formula aaB-dd" (Robinson's Genetics). The color is black pigment (eumelanin) at a chemical level diluted by the effect of this gene. The pigment in the hair strands is clumped rather than evenly dispersed leaving colorless areas giving the dilute effect. Selective breeding can alter the degree of dilution.

The grey cat breeds are blue all over. Some cat associations allow a much wider range of color points that include lynx points (tabby pointing) and tortoiseshell pointing. The pointing is broken resulting in a cat that does not look like a Siamese.

Lynx Point Siamese Cats

Lynx point Siamese cats have also been described as tabby Siamese cats but not by people who breed and show cats, I suspect.

The point is that cat breeders on both sides of the Atlantic were not satisfied with breeding the standard Siamese cat. Breeders like to expand the range and push the boundaries of cat breeding.

In respect of the Siamese cat this meant selective breeding to change the pointing to a whole new range of colors and even patterns. Original Siamese cat pointing is of a solid color: dark brown (seal), blue, lilac and chocolate colors. That should have been enough but no..

Selectively breeding in the tabby and agouti gene resulted in broken pointing; pointing with mackerel strips (mackerel tabby). See tabby cats.

Breeders call these cats Lynx Point Siamese. The word "lynx" is simply a fancy word to make the cat more interesting. There is no connection with lynx wild cats except they too are tabby cats as are many (all?) wildcats.

OK that's enough words. Here is a picture of a lynx point Siamese cat.

Traditional Lynx Point Siamese Cat
Photo by gsloan

This cat is a traditional Siamese cat. Some cat associations would not describe this cat as a Siamese. I wouldn't either. The CFA calls this cat a Lynx Colorpoint Shorthair.

Siamese Tabby Cat

The Siamese tabby cat is not tabby cat all over the body but just on the points - the extremities of the cat. What I mean is that the tabby coat only affects the points. Well that is not exactly true because I suspect the objective is to have the tabby gene only affect the points but it does affect to a certain extent other parts of the body.

Lynx point Siamese - Photo by ♥ellie♥

This creates a cat that in my opinion no longer looks like a Siamese cat but each to their own taste. You will see the classic "M" mark on the forehead or a vestige of it and banding on the legs and some lines on and around the face.

When the pointing is broken by the tabby gene it is less distinct. Tabby pointed Siamese cats are called Lynx point Siamese cats.

Lynx point Siamese cat - by AlishaV

Siamese tabby cats can be sliver tabby (silver lynx points) and tortie points. Although tortie or tortoiseshell points are not tabby points but the broken pointing looks similar.