The Colors of Ocicats
The Ocicat comes in 12 beautiful colors. Of them, four are varieties of black: tawny, ebony silver, blue, and blue silver, four are varieties of chocolate: chocolate, chocolate silver, lavender, and lavender silver, and four are varieties of cinnamon: cinnamon, cinnamon silver, fawn and fawn silver. The chocolate varieties are the most commonly registered, the fawn silver is the least common.
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| Non-silver Colors The amount of "rufousing" or red coloring in the background hair affects the color that you see. This rufousing is called "tarnish" on a silver variety. The "dilute" versions of the Ocicat colors, blue, blue silver, lavender, lavender silver, fawn and fawn silver, will be lighter overall as they are created by a change in both the amount and shape of pigment in the hair. However, it does not prevent them from being flashy and exotic with a wild look. |
The tawny has black or very dark brown spots on a beige to tawny colored background.
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The chocolate has a beige to tawny background with dark chocolate to reddish brown spot.
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The cinnamon is cinnamon powder colored spots on a beige to lemon colored background, but may be redder to an almost orange color.
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The blue is an off-black to gray colored spot on an ivory to peach background.
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The lavender is a brownish taupe to nearly purple colored spot on a ivory to peach background.
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The fawn is an orangy brown colored spot on a lemon to light peach background.
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| Silver Colors The silver varieties do not have a beige background, the underlying hair is white (silver). However, each hair is banded by the color of the pattern, so the overall effect of the background is a lighter version of the pattern color. |
The ebony silver is a gray to black spot on a silver background. In some cases, the white of the silver background affects the spot color by lightening it.
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The chocolate silver is a chocolate brown spot on a silver background. Because this color has been worked with often, chocolate silvers are often more dramatic than ebony silvers.
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The cinnamon silver is a cinnamon powder brown to nearly orange spot on a silver background.  |
The blue silver is an off-black to gray colored spot on a silver background.
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The lavender silver is a brownish taupe to almost purple spot on a silver background.
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The fawn silver is a orangy brown colored spot on a silver background.
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| Other Colors The Ocicat also comes in AOV (any other variety) patterns that are not spotted. These patterns can be any of the 12 colors. They included ticked tabby (like the Aby), classic tabby, the basis for the Ocicat's pattern, and solid (often called ghost-spotted). |
The ticked tabby has pattern bands of color on each hair rather than only on certain hairs like a classic or spotted tabby. Abys can only produce this pattern, so outcross lines of Ocicats will be ticked tabbies. 
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Spotting is a modifying gene that breaks up the classic tabby pattern in the Ocicat. Cats without the modifier are simply classic patterned.  |
The solid Ocicat does not have the gene that selects for a contrasting background color. Their overall color is the same, although it's usually possible to see the pattern, like a black leopard. Hence, ghost-spotted.  |
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