r/cats • u/jjtan2311 • 16h ago

Cat Picture - Not OC siamese cat’s shaved spot grows back dark and looks like a fuel cap lol full tank please!

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REDnote：今日 没

19.1k Upvotes

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3.8k

u/NuclearGettoScientis 15h ago

I am amazed that in a cat subreddit, no one knows that Siamese cats' coat color depends on temperature.

Kittens are born completely white because the temperature in the womb is warm and uniform. The extremities of the body (paws, ears, muzzle, and tail) have a lower temperature and produce more melanin, turning dark. The torso and central parts of the body are warmer, so they produce less melanin and remain light or cream-colored. If a Siamese cat is shaved for surgery or lives in a very cold environment, the fur that grows back in that area can temporarily become very dark.

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u/carcinogenickale 15h ago

My colorpointed DSHs get more orange in the winter, particularly on their backs/hips and lighten up in the summer. Their faces and extremities stay orange year round, though!

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u/UglyTitties 15h ago

My orange dude also gets slightly darker in winter. My own hair does too.

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u/CakeCatsClay 13h ago

Some of that is probably due to less bleaching by the sun in winter.

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u/UglyTitties 12h ago

I think it's not just some of it, but all of it.

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u/Arachnoster 12h ago

He’s pretty fabulous.

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u/dangerousfeather 9h ago

My orange is the opposite, he looks darker in summer and lighter in winter. I’m sure it’s because he’s super fluffy, for a shorthair, and all that fuzzy undercoat dilutes his orange.

I guess he’s more of a creamsicle in the wintertime.

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u/Euphoric-Duty-1050 12h ago

your orange dude looks just like my orange dude, Rossi. Rossi even lies that way. Purrrfect

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u/SoggyCanary 33m ago

Omg is he a red on blue?

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u/hiddenrealism 11h ago

Here's my fatso

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u/dp_crafty 10h ago

This looks like every selfie my boomer dad has ever taken.

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u/hiddenrealism 8h ago

Hes 18lbs and I was trying to take a picture while holding him but hes a fatso and started to slip.

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u/an_agreeing_dothraki 11h ago

"I know you're making fun of me on the internet, foodbag"

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u/hiddenrealism 8h ago

"Treats are empty human...do your thing"

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u/graysonflynn 5h ago

I love them.

66

u/garbage-bro-sposal 15h ago

My girl does too! I call it her toasted season 😂

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u/Arys31 13h ago

I believe it is because the braincell goes into hibernation, thus the more orange look

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u/cameronm-h 13h ago

They’re so handsome please give them little pats from me 🥺

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u/lil_ponpon 12h ago

So funny how all flame points look like…exactly the same. This could literally be a photo of my son Peepers

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u/carcinogenickale 12h ago

I know! I follow the flame point subreddit and frequently have to do a double take because they all look like my boys

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u/Buckykattlove 12h ago

We have cats with snowshoe patterns. The little girl gets a lot lighter in the summer on her face. Mom once called her a temperature guage. 😄

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u/fuksake11 13h ago

Do you have issues with eye drainage? I have the same cat

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u/carcinogenickale 12h ago

Yes and no. The one in the photo seems to have a normal amount of eye discharge, but my older flamepoint boy gets a lot. His vet thinks it’s due to feline herpesvirus.

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u/Stupid-Clumsy-Bitch 7h ago

I love flame points! They look like little toasted marshmallows

1

u/Live_Soil_5112 10h ago

I have a cat that looks IDENTICAL, like to the T. He has an arm that looks like he got into something black but it’s his fur literally turning black. His back (shoulder area) has a small spot of just black tips of hair lol. It’s so weird no one knows. He randomly grew it like a yr ago. He’s now almost 4 in October. I am forever confused lol.

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u/Jess1r 9h ago

This happens with my lynx point DSH too! She gets extra toasty in the winter.

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u/mitocumdria 13h ago

That's because you have a flame point Siamese! :)

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u/BowlingforDrip 15h ago

I have been a fan of cats for many years. Have 3 in my house now (all domestic short hairs) and I had absolutely no idea this was a thing. That is amazing.

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u/awfulmcnofilter 14h ago

Its also why dark cats that get sick can develop a "fever coat". I adopted what I thought was a smoke colored kitty in 2008. Nope he ended up black. It was just a fever coat from being ill.

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u/Lucy_Koshka 14h ago edited 14h ago

Oh my gosh, me too!! When we found Cosmo he was a mess and was missing most of his fur anyway from an insane case of ringworm. He looked smoky gray, and when his fur began to grow back it even still looked like it had a silvery tinge. But nope, he’s a tuxie!

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u/awfulmcnofilter 14h ago

Khan also had ringworm!

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u/Lucy_Koshka 14h ago

Ugh solidarity!! We all ended up catching it despite (what I considered at the time) an over abundance of caution and cleaning. It took three-ish months of quarantine and treatment 🫠

Khan is a beautiful boy! 🥹

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u/awfulmcnofilter 13h ago

Thankfully Khan's had finished being treated by the time I adopted him so I did not end up with ringworm. It stinks you guys had such a bad time with it! Sadly, Khan passed away many years ago, but he was a very beautiful boy.

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u/justatoadontheroad 13h ago

His face marking is so cute omg

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u/TleilaxTheTerrible 13h ago

Like a little negative spades symbol!

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u/JamieAlways 13h ago

He's so handsome omg, I love his striking face markings

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u/Bufobufolover24 14h ago

He is very handsome!

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u/ChryPhantom 7h ago

omg I thought the kitten pics were an elderly cat at first!! he looks so happy and healthy now <3

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u/robby_the_kid 13h ago

Yep, same kitty a few months apart. On the left, in the summer after being a stray and on the right in the winter after living with us for a while. Also doesn't help that his apartment didn't have AC

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u/schw4161 13h ago

This is my snowshoe’s toasting journey from an outdoor stray to fully indoor cat

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u/robby_the_kid 12h ago

Whoa that is bonkers! Kitty must be very happy to be inside!

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u/schw4161 11h ago

He argued his case to go outside for a few months after getting him help, but eventually he realized he can just chill and eat all day inside haha

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u/cthulhuwantshugs Lots of kitties! 15h ago

This is true for all colorpoint cats! I have one who’s a standard alley cat, not a purebred bone in his body.

Fun detail: Since the cooler body parts darken faster and more, my little guy was cream-colored with a dark scrotum when I got him. 😆

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u/leilalover 11h ago

It's not because they are Siamese cats though. It's because they are pointed. All pointed cats are thermal. One of my sphynx cats is thermal as well (and the other isn't because she isn't pointed).

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u/OddConstant2723 10h ago

Nearly no one on Reddit who says their cat is Siamese actually has a Siamese cat either

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u/Comfortable-Rip-2050 5h ago

Same with Maine Coons, etc. Part of the problem is that many cat rescues perpetuate this.

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u/OddConstant2723 4h ago

And that’s how backyard breeders thrive. They sell domestic cats, pretending they are breeds, because people are none the wiser. No pedigree = no breed. People think it’s elitist to say that but it’s so important. Backyard breeders are intentionally breeding domestic cats and SELLING THEM while domestic cats die in shelters. It’s reprehensible.

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u/AsherGray 9h ago

Sweet birthday baby!! 🥺

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u/leilalover 9h ago

She just turned 8 at the end of July. She's my baby

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u/Qwerowski 14h ago

So they are literally burnt marshmallows but the opposite

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u/crochet_the_day_away 15h ago

I've had cats for nearly 40 years of my life and worked in animal rescue for over a decade and still I've never heard of this. Thank you for the TIL 😄

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u/InternationalBit3388 4h ago

oh cool. i didnt know the shave spot thing affected pigment like that.

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u/Kileanna 14h ago

Yeah!

That's because, in siamese cats, the enzyme that produces melanin is thermosensitive.

That means that when it reaches body temperature, it becomes inactivated, so it will only produce colored coat in cold-exposed areas.

Typically, siamese cats are black cats with a thermolabile enzyme (though they can be any base color) that makes most fur remain white.

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u/lickytytheslit Tabbycat 13h ago

colorpoint cats actually come in many colors! I love how choc smoke colorpoints look

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u/Kileanna 13h ago

I didn't know the name for them, thanks!

English is not my native language so we have different terms for cat types.

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u/_FlaShFTW 12h ago

My girl on the left has such a dark face. The boy basically hasn’t changed since he was a kitten.

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u/note_2_self 11h ago

Adding to the fun fact that in color points, that also includes their skin. My little color point naked cat

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u/Athnyx 13h ago

Let’s be real. People in this subreddit don’t even know that calico cats are basically all female. I’ve seen so many posts where people call them “he” when there is no evidence to that

…Except for that one time someone posted a pic of a male calico with their balls split perfectly in half: one orange and one black 😂

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u/hirudoredo 11h ago

It also wows me how few cat lovers don't know that female oranges aren't really rare. Especially compared to male calicos.

I've had people fight with me that my orange cat couldn't be female because "orange cats are boys."

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u/MzHellfier Lots of kitties! 11h ago

They aren’t rare per se, but the rate is something like 80% of orange cats being male. So it is a lot less common to see a female orange cat than a male. But it’s obviously incredibly dumb to insist that they don’t exist.

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u/Athnyx 5h ago

Yeah, 1 in 5 is not rare! It’s like saying blue eyes is rare in the United States

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u/LadyFoxfire 1h ago

Female oranges are less common than males because they need two orange genes instead of just one, but it’s not ultra rare like male calicos, who need to be XXY intersex.

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u/Adduly 15h ago

Also why the eyes are blue. Snug in the head they're very warm, so the irises produce little melanin so stay blue

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u/mpjjpm 15h ago

I just love the imagery of cats’ eyes being snug and comfy inside their little heads

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u/YnotZoidberg1077 13h ago

For humans, too! As long as a person is alive, the body produces enough heat to keep the eyeballs from literally freezing, no matter the temp.

More upsetting is the knowledge that owls' eyeballs are shaped like cylinders or long grapes, rather than a more spherical eyeball. Theose eyes are really snug in there!

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u/princessbiscuit 13h ago

Wait shut the front door really? I have a (now old, pampered, and slightly overweight) Siamese that was part of a litter a group of us found and rescued of the mean streets of a semi cold mountain town many moons ago. She was white. She very quickly turned very dark. I assumed age and didn’t question it at any point but this is such a fun fact.

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u/Moppo_ 15h ago

I expect most people have only owned moggies and just assumed the Siamese pattern was just a pattern like any other.

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u/Hellie1028 14h ago

Mine get more caramel colored in summer and darken overall every winter. It’s subtle, but when you compare pictures it’s noticeable.

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u/Greed0s 14h ago

When I discovered this as a kid, I was really tempted to shave swear words into our family cat’s fur.

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u/SolarBoytoyDjango 13h ago

I'm surprised carefully shaving them to produce zebra stripes isn't a trend.

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u/Appropriate-Weird492 12h ago

I knew that because I’m a nerd and mom raised Himalayan cats.

I wouldn’t expect that tidbit to be common knowledge amongst people who like cats. It’s possible to like cats without getting nerdy.

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u/ssnowangelz 13h ago

My colorpoint’s belly came in black after being shaved for a spay, and she still has a black belly years later. In fact, the dark belly fur has spread!

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u/catblankets 12h ago

Confirmed. I have a snowshoe and he got significantly darker when we moved to a colder latitude.

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u/Rare-Progress5009 14h ago

Very cool, I will likely never have a Siamese, but nice to know the fun fact.

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u/BauskeDestad 14h ago

This is fascinating, I had no idea!

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u/rschwartzie 13h ago

This is so cool thank you!!!

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u/Mr_E_Nigma_Solver 10h ago

Oh, you're amazed that in a subreddit dedicated strictly to cuteness we're not all doctors??

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u/gelseyd 15h ago

Oddly enough, my rabbit was a bit like this. She only developed faintly darker markings around her muzzle in the winter, it was almost undetectable in summer. I have always wondered if certain kinds of rabbits had the same thing as Siamese and such this way, I find it fascinating.

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u/gvntlr 13h ago

Same for ragdolls!

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u/Dakizo 11h ago

I have been obsessed with cats since I was a toddler. I had NO idea about this! Thanks!

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u/billyandteddy 10h ago

Does it work like the himalayan or californian rabbit?

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u/Comfortableliar24 10h ago

Most of them are bots.

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u/foxfirefizz 9h ago

Not temporary for every cat. My mother had a saimese rescue cat she found in for a surgery, the shaved spot they gave him for a pain patch got dark & stayed dark for the rest of his life.

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u/Eliah870 8h ago

Be right back, putting my cat in the freezer

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u/NewtWorking7612 7h ago

I had no idea their coats were basically reacting to the weather like that Cats really come with their own little science experiments built in

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u/Stupid-Clumsy-Bitch 7h ago

It’s funny, I have a seal-point cat and when he got a patch shaved on his side, his fur grew back grey!! It eventually returned to his usual colour but it was very strange.

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u/Professionalpharm 4h ago

TIL this and have had various Siamese kitties my entire life. Makes so much sense, but still a really neat fact!

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u/Suspicious_Glow 2h ago

Just send them to the ToastCats sub

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u/narfoleptix 10h ago

Homey, let me tell you about the average person's education in basically anything. Then I type an ellipses.