How often do Nermals happen?

This is my newest cat Nermal she is a pointed cat born in a mixed litter.

How often does this happen? What happened in her genealogy for this to occur?

Any other info about these types of cats is also welcomed.

She is a sweet cat but certainly has a wild streak, very skittish but also calm 

enough to hang out on your lap and bear some minimal petting. She has some

brown tones in her face, ears and paws but her browns change over to grey

towards the rear of her body. Her light hair is very very bright white but she

seems to be toning out like many other pointed or Siamese cats.

My wife and I think she is gorgeous but maybe that is just us.

Her life chronicled in photos.

The day we met her. May 2012





The day we brought her home. July 2012




Thanksgiving 2012


Christmas and New Years



February 2013


Thanks for looking,

-Charlie

Varies hugely from place to place - in some places none appear, in others up to 25% of kittens are pointed.  At some time in the past a entire pointed cat (probably a male) has made it's contribution to the local cat population.  From that point forwards (from his or her grandkittens) pointed cats will pop up.

It could be a Siamese, a Himalayan, a Birman or someone moved in from somewhere else with an entire pointed cat of unknown origin.

Mom, and the other kittens they too look nicely!

Mom is a point carrier, and if she meets a male whom also is a point carrier, this will occur, 1 of 4 kittens (in average) will be a pointed cat, often some sort of old siamese look alike.

Two kittens will be point carriers, 

one again, will be non carrier in "every" litter of 4.

If dad is a pointed cat, and mom our carrier, half of the kittens will be pointed. half carriers but themselves not pointed.

In some population carriers are quite common, so this will happen often there.

In other population carriers are not common, so this will happen very seldom.  

Good luck!

She is a cute Seal Point DSH! I'm a big fan of pointed cats and have had both pedigrees and moggies with this pattern. I'll give you some genetics, biology and history.

Basically the "cs" gene ( or more specifically allele) that causes this "pointed" pattern is a recessive. That means that a kitten has to inherit 2 copies of "cs", one from each parent, in order to show the pattern. It also means that a cat that gets just one copy of cs (like your cat's mother) won't show it but "carries" it, and if that cat happens to mate with another cat who has either 1 or 2 of it, and both of them give a copy to a kitten, that kitten will be cs/cs -- it will turn out to be a pointed kitty like Nermal. In this litter, it just turned out that Nermal is the only kitten to get 2 copies of the "cs" .

The cs/ cs pair causes a form of pigment restriction based on temperature, where there is less pigment on parts of the body where the body temp is higher. Kittens are born white coming from the heat of their mother's womb, then gradually they start to get color on the cooler parts -- the "points". and gradually the body becomes a paler shade of the point color. ( But seal point and blue point tend to develop darker color on the bodies than chocolate point and lilac point.)
Blue eyes always goes with this pattern, though the shade of blue varies.

The pointed gene is thought to have originated very long ago in Southeast Asia. There are records from 1300s-1700s AD of pointed cats in the area that is now Thailand , but the mutation may have occurred long before that. Those are the cats that became the original Siamese. (during one period of history, Thailand was called Siam.) Siamese cats later started being imported to countries in the West in the late1800s. Since then, the gene for this pattern has both been bred into other breeds ( like the Himalayans AKA pointed Persians) and also has been spread through the general random-bred "domestic shorthair"/ "domestic longhair" or "moggy" cat populations in those countries by Siamese cats and their descendents ( including cats of other breeds who got the pattern from them) mating with the local moggies.

Often it is a big surprise when a pointed kitten pops up in a non pointed cat's litter, and sometimes people incorrectly assume that it means the kitten is "half Siamese" or something. But as you can see from the explanation of the genetics, it can be passed down through many generations of cats of any color / pattern. and being pointed doesn't mean anything about being a certain breed or having a recent ancestor of a certain breed.
When a pointed cat is born somewhere like the USA or UK , it means almost certainly there were SOME pedigreed ancestors on both sides , and if you could trace their ancestry far enough back, it would get back to Siamese). BUT that doesn't tell you anything about how distant the pedigreed ancestors were. In most cases probably very distant. There are a lot of pointed cats running around today whose most recent pedigreed ancestor was probably 60 years ago or more, and they are way way way less than 1% Siamese or any other breed.
Probably a lot of the spread of this in the West would have been in the mid 20th century when Siamese were at the height of their popularity , and fewer people back then got their cats spayed/ neutered , and more people allowed their pet cats including pedigreed cats, to roam around and mate with the cat down the street.

Thanks for sharing the pictures of your pretty girl!

Thanks maewkaew. That was interesting reading. I don't know anything about breeds, so it was educational. I think Siamese (and Siamese look alikes) are so pretty. Love their blue eyes.

vball91 said:

Thanks maewkaew. That was interesting reading. I don't know anything about breeds, so it was educational. I think Siamese (and Siamese look alikes) are so pretty. Love their blue eyes.

Click to expand...

Plenty of other breeds can be or are pointed.  Himalayans are pointed Persians, all Birmans are pointed, Siberians can be, British Shorthair can be, Tonkinese varients can be, Ragdolls are, suspect Selkirk Rex can be, Bengals can be (it's not so obvious on them), Devon Rex can (often called Si-Rex), Snowshoes are, believe Cornish Rex can be, and also Sphyinx.  Of course some of the above might have white as well - Birmans always do, Snowshoes always do.  It's a very widespread gene.