Many years ago (1977) I did a university project about the coat pattern genetics of feral cats, testing the hypothesis that under some selective pressure for camouflage assisting better hunting or protection from predators they would tend to revert to wild-type. So I have maintained some interest. I have various references on the issue of cat colour genetics and efforts to try to trace ancestry of populations by this method. They all seemed a bit tenuous to me. I think a suggestion of pre European arrival of cats in Australia novel and rather weird. I can’t think of any existing evidence that would support that or how or why it should happen. Surely the species of small mammals that have succumbed would have already done so before European people arrived. About the idea that feral cats in northern Australia may be smaller than in the south, well that may well be (it is a new idea to me). If so that simply supports the general rule of clinal variation that says that organisms further from the equator tend to be bigger than tropical forms (usually of the same species). I would think it is quite feasible that feral cats could have adapted that way in a bit over 200 years.
My comments on coat pattern genetics of cats (below) only mention three genes, those that are the most relevant, there are several other genes that produce other effects on these basic ones.
The correspondence below may contribute something although I won’t include the attachments as they are 3MB.
Philip Veerman
Hi Philip,
Thanks for your interesting email. It would be interesting to see your report, though I’m not sure that much could come of it now. I think it’s pretty well recognised now that feral cats (as well as other species, like pigs) tend to revert to a wild phenotype fairly quickly. Although this is probably one of those things that is just accepted because it makes intuitive sense, without ever been tested or quantitatively described.
Pip Masters at Kangaroo Island NRM Board has an increasing dataset of feral cats killed or found as road kill on the island. Most of them have been dark tabbies of one type or another; black has also been common. David Paton from Adelaide Uni also reported similar results (attached paper page 7). Most in our study were also tabbies, as detailed in the attached paper WR11134.
My impression was that coat patterns tended to be more varied closer to settlements, as might be expected if there were more domestic phenotypes regularly entering the population in these areas, but I this is just an impression. I can’t recall ever seeing a cat with white in its coat at any of our bushland sites, but we found a few around farms and towns (I have one such skin hanging in my office).
One final attachment that you might be interested in is a poster classifying domestic cats according to their coat patterns.
Thanks again for the information. Among other things, I’ve now learnt that all tortoiseshell cats are female.
Best wishes,
Andrew
Andrew Bengsen | Research Officer NSW Department of Primary Industries | Vertebrate Pest Research Unit 1447 Forest Rd | Orange NSW 2800 | Locked Bag 6006 | Orange NSW 2800 T: 02 6391 3991 | M: 0438 746 294 | F: 02 6391 3972 | E: andrew.bengsen@dpi.nsw.gov.au
From: Philip Veerman
