Universal Press Syndicate The tabby is the most common pattern in pet cats.

Tabbies comes in many colors, such as red (more commonly called "orange," "ginger" or "marmalade"), cream, brown or gray. The tabby pattern is so common that, even in solid-colored cats, you can often discern faint tabby markings, especially on the head, legs and tail.

But there's more to cat markings than stripes.

"Smoked," "shaded" and "shell" describe the varying amounts of tipping that appear on each individual hair, with shell being a dash of color at the very tip, shaded a little more tipping, and smoked, at the other extreme, being a coat so heavily tipped that it may look solid, except as the cat moves and the lighter color becomes visible underneath.

Fur can also be "ticked" -- that is, banded with color, as in the agouti pattern seen in the Abyssinian, where dark-colored bands alternate with lighter ones on each hair shaft.

"Pointed" cats are those such as the Siamese, with lighter-colored bodies shading to darker, complementary colors at the "points" -- the face, the ears, the legs and the tail.

"Bicolors" are any other color (or pattern, such as tabby) paired with white, and "particolors" have three or more colors, as is true of calicoes.

Mixing these genetics can have some unpredictable results. The spotted Ocicat, for example, was created as the result of mating a Siamese and an Abyssinian!