I have a question!?!

When we bought our cat (she is four years old now) we were told she is half Maine Coon and half Somali. What bothers me is, I see some Maine coon in her, but I believe that she is half Abyssinian. I heard, and I may be wrong, that a Somali is really just a long-haired Abyssinian. My cat, Molly, (oh, she is really beautiful!) does not have long hair at all. Especially the tail. It is not all long and fluffy like a Somali. She has the beautiful almond eyes and ticked color...oh, she's a ruddy color. I guess it just confuses me, but that is what the receipt said when we bought her. (Molly's mama was the Somali, and daddy the Maine coon.) Any insights, please?

Originally Posted by Barbieboo

I heard, and I may be wrong, that a Somali is really just a long-haired Abyssinian.

Click to expand...

You are right - a somali is a long haired Abyssinian. Mosi is a Somali. The gene for long hair is recessive so if you breed 2 long haired cats together you cannot get short haired kittens. If you have a short haired cat then at least one parent must have have had short hair.

Someone correct me if that's an over simplification of the short hair/long hair thing!

Lets do this one by one okay?

1. Pictures - I can't imagine your cat!!!
2. A somali is a long haired abyssinian - the LH gene is naturally occuring.
3. For a maine coon x ruddy Aby mating, I would expect a larger than a medium sized cat.
4. Urbantigers is correct - the litter should be 1/2 LH and 1/2 SH unless the recessive LH gene in the Aby really comes into play.
5. I don't doubt your kitten is ticked - agouti tucking is dominant and ticking is a tabby gene after all.

Seriously, I'd really like to see pics - I've often wondered what an MC X Aby mating would produce since I doubt very much the kittens would look somali. The two body types, head types and size even are waaaayyyyy different!

Pictures please???

Some Somali's don't have a really long coat. Can you post a pic? If she is shorthair and not long, then you are right - mom would have be a shorthair aby (or maybe the mom was an aby/somali cross). Two LH cats won't produce a SH cat.

And if the mom is the cross and then mixed with a maine coon, then you might wind up with a semi-longhair that is not that fluffy.

You're right that some somalis don't have long coats - sometimes in pictures they can look almost like short haired cats from certain angles. But will have a fluffy tail and fluffy breeches Mom could have been a somali variant (short haired).

I'd love to see pics too.

The main reason why some somalis don't have long coats is that the parents could have been an Aby x Somali. When you have this type of mating, the whole litter is registered as Somali and not Aby irrespective of coat length - at least to CFA!

Sometimes that's why I like TICA's rules - register them the way they look

In the Netherlands the offspring from Somali x Aby matings are registered (on the pedigree) as Abyssinian variant. These cats can not be used to breed with Aby's, only with Somali's, so the longhair genes will not go back into the Aby genepool as most Aby breeders don't desire them.

I think I know what urbantigers means by "some Somali's don't really have long coats" . With longhairs people think about breeds like the Maine Coon with a big ruff and long hairs all over. Some Somali's have coats like that, but some, like my Flynn have shorter hair. Flynn doesn't really have a ruff, just a fluffy tail, breeches and a very fluffy belly. He comes from a Somali x Somali breeding. His brothers hair is just a bit longer, he has more of a ruff and very pretty eartufts. Just polygenes at work I guess. I've met both his father and his mother and they seem to have longer hair than he does, but his hair is way longer than of the Aby's and Aby variant cats I've met.

Flynn impersonating an Aby:
http://i16.photobucket.com/albums/b2...n/FlynnAby.jpg

Flynn looking more fluffy:
http://i16.photobucket.com/albums/b2...nn/Flynn17.jpg

On the semi-longhairs (which I put the somalis, turkish angoras, balinese), you have a little fluffy tail, sometimes a ruff, and a little longer on the belly. The rest of the cat is more/less "shorthair".

And if its a breeding cat, its hard to maintain that ruff. I've seen full ruffs on altered cats.

Mosi is most offended at your description of his tail as "a little fluffy tail"! He'd have you know his tail is quite spectacular!

But I know what you mean - his mum had fairly short hair except for the belly and tail. Somalis in general tend to have shorter hair than other semi long hairs.

I sorry Mosi

I'm assuming he's neutered and therefore, has a better tail then his whole brother