A cross between a black cat & tan cat produce a tabby pattern (black and tan fur spotted). What percent of kittens would have tan fur if a tabby pattern cat is crossed with a black cat?

Answer 1

To determine the percentage of kittens that would have tan fur from a cross between a tabby pattern cat (which is black and tan spotted) and a black cat, we need to make some assumptions about the genetic inheritance patterns involved.

Assuming that the tan fur and the tabby pattern are influenced by two alleles in a simple Mendelian fashion, let's denote:

• B for black fur (dominant)
• b for tan fur (recessive)
• T for tabby pattern (which may also involve variations of black and tan)

Let's assume the tabby cat is heterozygous for fur color (Bb) since it has the black and tan coloring. The black cat would have the genotype BB.

When crossed:

• Tabby Cat (Bb) can produce gametes: B or b.
• Black Cat (BB) can only produce gametes: B.

The possible offspring genotypes from these gametes would thus be:

1. BB (from B and B) – black fur
2. Bb (from B and b) – also black fur, with some tan may appear due to the tabby pattern but phenotype-wise may show primarily black.

Since the tan color (bb) is recessive and requires both alleles to be the recessive type (bb) for the tan fur to be expressed, and given our crossing scenario, none of the kittens will inherit the bb genotype.

Thus, 0% of the kittens from this cross will have tan fur, as all would either be BB or Bb, with all having black fur.