What Breed is My Kitten?

This is Stella, I got her about a month ago. Her momma is a brown tabby with no tail (I posted picture of her) and I do not have any idea what her dad is. All of her sibling were black, or were colored like her but darker. She has half a tail. It's hard to get pictures of her because she's so playful but here are the ones I managed to get over the last month, and the close up picture of her fur doesn't show the color very well due to the lighting and because she was wiggling, but its white at the very root, then grey, then grayish/ black on the ends and sometimes has a brown tint in the right light, and her paws and face and ears are black. I was just wondering if anyone could tell me what breed she is, what color she is, and if she will stay this color?

Hi and welcome to the site

What a beautiful girl :heart3:

Her color is a black smoke.
If you google "black smoke cat" and you can check out the pictures of other cats that have this stunning coat color.

It's hard to say which tailless gene she has. But, with her having half a tail i would think most likely the Manx gene. The Manx gene can produce tails of different lengths, your girls tail would be called a Stubby I think

Her breed is a-freaking-dorable!

She is going to be an absolutely gorgeous cat. I love her little short face, too cute!

OMG She looks just like my Carpet when she was a baby!

Carpet only has a half tail too. She's a Japanese Bob-Tail, but that's because I live in Japan and nearly all the feral cats around here have the bob-tail gene.


 Carpet when she was an iddy-biddy little feral kitten.



Carpet now.

I've got quite a few bob-tailed cats and they are all super affectionate and playful.

Enjoy your new kitten, she's going to be fun.

Norachan Thank you so much for the pictures! They do look very similar, hopefully Stella is as beautiful as your baby when she grows up!
And GemsGem I thought that she might be black smoke, but wasn't sure since everything I've read said that the have to have a lot of white under their fur, like 1/2 an inch or something, what do you think about this?

abbygibson1212 said:

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And GemsGem I thought that she might be black smoke, but wasn't sure since everything I've read said that the have to have a lot of white under their fur, like 1/2 an inch or something, what do you think about this?

Click to expand...

There are actually three types Smoke, Shaded and Tipped (also called Shell) that are all forms of the silver gene restriction colouration. This silver gene restricts colour to the hair tip only, while the root of each hair is white.

Tipped - cats which a tipped coat have the most white with only the very ends of each hair tipped with color.

Shaded - shaded cats the colour extends further along each hair shaft, usually about half way. So, each hair is half white and half color.

Smokes - cats with a smoke coat have about the first quarter of the hair shaft white and the other three quarters colored.

Easier to think about like this -

Tipped 3/4 hair shaft white
Shaded 1/2 hair shaft white
Smoke 1/4 hair shaft white

Your girl is a bit to young yet to judge how much white she will have. She needs her adult coat to come through fully before any guesses could be made

GemsGem Thank you! I didn't know any of that! I've tried researching it a lot but I've been getting different and confusing answers from everything I've read, so thanks for clearing that up for me!

GemsGem Hi! It's been a long time since I've asked anything about Stella, as she got older all of her hair turned black and she looked like a typical black cat all winter, but now spring/summer is here, and she's shedding her winter coat for the very first time, and the grey/white is coming in again! I'd lost hope in her being a black smoke when she got her adult winter coat, but now that she's getting her summer coat in, I'm thinking she is again. What do you think? And is it normal for black smokes to be dark in the winter and light in the summer? Also, since she has started shedding her winter coat (there is hair everywhere lol) her coat has gotten greasy, is this normal?

Back of her neck

Her back

She hasn't shed all of her winter coat yet, and today was the first that I've noticed the lighter color, so I think over the next few weeks as she finishes shedding she might get even lighter, but I don't know.

Looking at Stella as kitten, I got to think on fever coat.  This looks of a typical  Point.  But a point at this age would be fair on body, even if he were a seal = black point.

Thus, not point, but fever coat.

If she is a smoke, or a more modest blackie, we let @GemsGem   decide, now when we have also the most contemporary pics on Stella as adult.