hii hope its okay to ask!! i got a picture of my cat calliope’s stomach. is this a ‘locket’ like you mentioned in the tags? thank you for the ID, ive been hoping to know what to call her color. you rock! ✨
of course! I love helping w/cat genetics questions. and Calliope is a very pretty kitty :D
As for the locket– it's a little complicated? Visually, yeah, I'd say it's a white locket, or whatever the word for "white spot on the lower belly" is.
("locket" is generally used for throat/chest spot, "brisket" for a white patch in-between two front legs/on lower chest, but idk if there's one for that area specifically lol, so I'm just gonna go with "locket").
Genetically, it's likely that there is different genes other than the usual white spotting that can cause small lockets, and perhaps polygenic traits that influence the amount of white, but we haven't identified them yet– a quote from this website says:
"...as mentioned before, the allele ws is the main one causing white spots. But it’s not the only one! White spots are not simple and are caused by several genes, some still being unknown. It seems that the minimal white spotting such as the locket is linked to another gene. Similarly, some polygenes may control the white repartition as some breeds manage to relatively control the white spots like in the Ragdoll breed."
One example of this probable non-white-spotting gene that causes white is from this Reddit post:
The OP's cat clearly has white, and yet when tested, did not have any of the commonly tested genes that cause white.
So on your Calliope, it's likely white spotting causing her belly spot, but technically it's not impossible for that to be caused by a different gene.
I just added that in my tags because I remembered about the existence of different white genes, it was kind of a train-of-thought thing lol. But yeah, black tortie w/low white!
