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Modify the dilution and it becomes "caramel". Shaded silvers, black smokes and chinchilla cats may look various shades of grey or silver, but they are black cats with silver roots to their fur. In the Asian breed (self Burmese cats) it has a breed name to itself "Bombay". In Burmese it is "sable" or "seal sepia" and in American Tonkinese it is "cinnamon" or "natural mink". In colour-pointed cats, "black" is called "seal".
![tabby maine coon tabby maine coon](http://pictures-of-cats.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/mc3-678x1024.jpg)
The jet-black colour you known as "black" is called "ebony" and "ebony tabby" in Orientals, "black" in solid coloured domestic shorthairs, "brown" when it refers to brown tabby domestic shorthairs, "bronze" in Egyptian Maus, "tawny" in Ocicats and "ruddy" in Abyssinians. Confused? Don't worry - there are some cross-reference tables later on! American registries like to add "mink" after the Tonkinese colors whereas British registries use the same name for that color as is used in the equivalent Siamese or Burmese colour. Even in the same breed, the color may have different names depending on which country the cat comes from and which registry it is registered with. The same colors are called by different names in different breeds. Colors that appear identical to the human eye are caused by different genetic interactions. Even where the same name is used, there may be different views on what is an acceptable or ideal version of that color. Why are there not five basic colors? White is counted as an absence of color rather than a color.ĭifferent countries, registries and breeds have different names for some of the same basic colours. Red is a form of tabby as it is impossible to completely eliminate the tabby markings. All other solid colors are modifications of these. Genetically there are four basic solid colors of cats: black, chocolate, cinnamon and red.