Breed Colors Among the cats that are not purebreds, the brown striped and blotched cats most closely resemble their wild African and European ancestors. Solid white is the rarest, though genetically it is dominant over other colors. Solid black and solid blue are relatively rare. Almost without exception, the solid blacks have a few white hairs under the throat and shoulder. The solid colors occasionally show faint striping on the legs and tail.
Many cats have white markings.
Some of these are handsomely symmetrical, but others are distributed irregularly and sometimes create a quaint or even comical effect. For this reason tortoiseshell males and tricolor males are produced only as the result of abnormal chromosome arrangements that occurred in one or both parents. Such abnormal arrangements often lead to infertility, and the males may not be able to reproduce. In other words, tortoiseshells and tricolors of breed standards are very difficult to produce by controlled breeding. Breed Organizations Recognition and acceptance of a breed usually must come from an established group of cat fanciers.