Groups

GEORGE

There has been a lot written recently about new groups of cats forming. Before there was only the Tuxedo Gang, to which Max & Tipper belong. This is for cats wearing tuxes (which, by the way, are also bi-colors).

Now the Gorgeous Gingers (orange/buff), Attack of the Tabbies (tabbies & torbies) & House Panthers (all black) are forming their own groups and that’s a good thing. I have nothing at all against like cats forming their own groups where they can socialize & post information of interest to their group. And I do admire the markings and colorings of all cats. After all, we are all sisters & brothers under the fur and are very proud of our feline heritage.

But I want to address the fact that some of us don’t fall into any of the above groups. I am what is known generally as a Bi-Color or Particolor, also called a Harlequin, Jellicle, Piebald or Van cat depending on how much of a color other than white you have on your body. Mom and I did some research on cat markings and this is what we found.

The most popular breed known as Van is the Turkish Van, this cat has a white body, white ears and white legs, on its head it has 2 colour patches on top of the head near the base of the ears and the tail is fully coloured.
Exactly this pattern is called in some federations a Van-pattern (homozygous SS) and you may find this pattern also in Persians and Exotic, in the Maine Coon and Norwegian Forest, in British Shorthair and Europeans, in the Rex cats, etc.
A Harlequin is something inbetween a Van-pattern and a Bicolour. It has some colour patches on its body or its legs.
To make it confusing, in some federations the Vans are called Harlequins, that means there are only two patterns recognized the Harlequin and the Bicolour, while in other federations there are 3 patterns recognized, the Van, Harlequin and Bicolour.
A Bicolour has mostly the back fully covered and may show 1 white patch on the back, while the chest and stomach is white, which might go up to the flancs. The head including the ears shows colour and white, ideally the face should show a white flame. Legs and tail can be coloured with white patches.
In some federations tortie cats with white patches are called Tricolour - f.e. black tortie with white or bluecream with white, in other federations these cats are called Calicos.
In some federations cats are called Parti-Colour which are either tortie or tortie with white.

Harlequin cats like me are at least 2/3 white with any other color on their head and tail along with other large spots on the back area. I would be a Grade 6 on the chart.

So we don't exclude any of our blogging community, I propose forming a group for those, like me, that lack the specific patterns or coloration to be in one of the existing groups. Would this be of interest to any cat out there? Anyone who isn’t a tuxie, ginger, tabbie or solid black? I’ve looked at as many of our pictures as I can, but sometimes it’s hard to identify body markings if only the head shot can be seen easily.

If you’re interested in this, please e-mail me at crewsviews@catlover.com, and we can talk about it. All you bi & tri-colors - we could include solid white, too, unless they want their own group.