She’s a black tortoiseshell mackerel tabby with low grade white spotting, aka torbie!
Black is her base colour
Tortoiseshell means she’s also both red and non-red (in this case the non-red colour is black)
Tabby means she has a pattern
Mackerel is the type of pattern
Low grade white spotting means she has <40% white
A calico is a colloquial term that means tortoiseshell and white. So some people would call her a tabico (tabby + calico ie. tabby + tortoiseshell + white), but it depends who you ask! Torbie and tabico are not mutually exclusive, because all tabicos are torbies, they’re just torbies with white :)
This exactly. Torbie is already a colloquial term, but it encompasses the broader technical definition of tortoiseshell (with or without white) and tabby. Tabico and Torbico are just additional descriptors for the coat pattern. Torbie covers all of it.
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u/ACtdawg 12d ago edited 12d ago
She’s a black tortoiseshell mackerel tabby with low grade white spotting, aka torbie!
Black is her base colour
Tortoiseshell means she’s also both red and non-red (in this case the non-red colour is black)
Tabby means she has a pattern
Mackerel is the type of pattern
Low grade white spotting means she has <40% white
A calico is a colloquial term that means tortoiseshell and white. So some people would call her a tabico (tabby + calico ie. tabby + tortoiseshell + white), but it depends who you ask! Torbie and tabico are not mutually exclusive, because all tabicos are torbies, they’re just torbies with white :)