There are many colors and patterns that are genetically possible in the cat, so this section only covers the colors that you are most likely to see. If you look up close at the light parts of a tabby's coat, you will see that the individual hairs are striped with alternating light and dark bands, like the fur of a rabbit or a squirrel. Sometimes these are large spots, sometimes small spots, and sometimes they appear to be broken mackerel stripes. However, like all tabbies, it has tabby markings on the face and agouti hairs on the body. This is the color of the Abyssinian cat, but it also appears in non-purebreds and does not mean the cat is Abyssinian.
Tabbies come in many different colors.
You can tell what color a tabby is by looking at the color of its stripes and its tail tip. The black stripes may be coal black, or a little bit brownish. The gray stripes may be a dark slate gray, or a lighter blue-gray. The roots of the hairs are white. In all cases, silver tabbies have a pale ground color and white roots.