The Delightful Mutation Behind Siamese Cats 

Now I want to make a heating pad with a picture and stap it to a siamese kitten.

Big brain...

Duck Goes Quack you mean cooling pad? ~

@@FlurAhFlur Why are there cookie cutters in the freezer? lols

Predators (the illegal type) also want to know your location

Explains why Gamgam always needs a blanket.

Huh, now that you mention it, we had an older siamese cat at the shelter I used to volunteer at. His name was Bob cause his head would bob due to à neurological disorder. He struggled with the litter box and he wasn't very good at walking, but he was a good cat

I wondered if anyone had beat me to “um, actually” this point... grew up in a house full of Siamese and Colourpoint Shorthairs so I’ve watched them go from baby white to almost solid. Overall a great video - have spent a lot of time studying feline genetics (first place at the science fair!), but never had anyone explain the science of the enzymes at work

@@thechocobotamer6938 it's because the quickest way to get a good siamese is to line breed, but that also causes issues to pop up at a higher than normal rate.

Oh wow. That explains why my Sammy was so dark in the last few years of his life. I lost him at the age of seventeen. I miss him. 😢

"Captain Mittens! We're losing too much power in the central core!"

So thats why cats purr....its powering up

@@deadpanbog70988 ROFL! 🤣 😂 😅

To be fair, they also talk about human core temperature.

@@resourcedragon Spoiling it with your logic and reason. Yucky! Ima stick with Battleship Mittens

@@athirkell the cat in his pfp

awww im sure he had a great time with you

Awwww. Sounds like your kitty had the best life.

♡

@@athirkell he sounds like a good kitty. I hope he is having a wonderful time in kitty heaven

Old boi

brown*

Try cooling her down for a few month = New cat!

Siamese cats are from Thailand roght? And they may just be ordinary there. but in other countries in Asia this is very expensive cat.

My Siamese lived to 20 😞

Exactly what I thought! I scrolled down to see if anyone had made a comment about it. Siamese cats will forever be known as ‘oh that cat that is a mood ring’ in my mind from this point on

That works very slowly.

So hypothetically if i raised a Siamese kitten in a house with the thermostat low enough it would be brown

I haven't read all the Cat Who... books by the late Lilian Jackson Braun, so I don't know if she knew this particular fact.

😂😂

Bless your heart. Thank you for saving the poor animal from the devil.

*AWW TY FOR SAVING HERR* siamese cats are so cute man

are those cats expensive compared to other cats?

@@eduardochavacano Depends where you get them. All cats are usually the same price at shelters. I got my Siamese tabby from a shelter for the regular price. We picked him because he was the sweetest.

How terrible how some humans can be so wicked with cats .god bless your good heart aleays ❤❤❤❤

B J my Bengal mix is 20 and still acts like a kitten.. she can’t play as much due to arthritis but people think she is about six and sometimes think I’m pulling their leg.. sorry had to gush 💞

my girl is 16, had her since 6weeks and still acts/plays like a kitten

Is she purebred? There might be some other genetics in there. Birmans and ragdolls, for example, have color points but also white paws.

Cute. My mixed Siamese, Tuna, had a white coat but now it has mixed bloches.

Generally speaking, calico (or tortie and white in the UK) cats have a white spotting gene, and this white spotting gene will blank out whatever colour should have been there, in the patches in which the white spotting gene is expressed. And it sounds like your gorgeous girl happens to have a patch of white spotting on her paw, hence her missing sock (or as someone else suggested, a birman sock might do it too). She sounds freaking adorable. 😻

@@davidhadley6164 As far as I understand, that tends to happen because as the cat gets older, their skin temperature tends to drop a little because of age and also change in body volume to the surface area, and that can be enough for the fur to darken overall. If she also has a calico/tortie type of marking as well as the siamese pointing gene, then that might explain why there is patchiness - just enough pigment is able to form in the darker "black" patches, but not enough in the "ginger" or "white" patches. I love coat colour genetics in animals, they're so fascinating!

As far as cats are concerned, it's always about them.😸

Really not that rare

i can understand adopting a pregnant cat, but...why did she have another litter?

@@hectare I cant speak to that man's exact situation but I had a similar case with the stray adopt my family. She just would not leave the porch and it became clear she pregnant so we took her in. The vet said to bring her in when the kittens where weaned so she could be spayed. When we took her in around a month after delivering she was already pregnant again. It can happen pretty quickly. We managed to REALLY lock her down after the second litter and got her fixed. But a cat in heat is force to contend with. Especially a stray.

King D - Mind my cat is a female orange tiger but with like a buff wash.

I forgot to add they are strays. They aren’t exactly adopted, but they like staying at home and I take care of them as if they were my own

Likewise the scrotum on my male Siamese, Scamp. We made fun of his southern exposure until it changed back.

@@katiekane5247 that poor schmuck, having people laughing at your balls

@@stygian8049 Worse. At your lack of balls.

Vet here! We try to spay show cats such as siamese underneath their belly instead of on their sides so that the darker fur isn't as obvious when they are shown! :)

@@NckJonasluver Alternative method: shave a heart shape into the fur so that it grows back as a chocolate heart on their side (obviously not appropriate for show animals, but would be super cute for a family pet)

Hey Cody nice to see you here

Codyy!!!!

Yeah it is pretty cool

Looks like you have a ginger kitty too, too cute!

My siamese cat has a dark belly from where she was shaved for her spay.

That just happened to me! All of a sudden out of nowhere, a beautiful siamese came on our porch. I'm not religious, but I think he's a reincarnation of our old rescue. He was friendly right away and we're trying to introduce him to our dog and cats. What did you do to introduce?

Siamese are the best! =)

@@lapillus2344 Just introduce them slowly and with supervision. There's tons of videos on it. I recommend kitten lady.

This is important scientific data, thank you for your contribution to science, your nobel peace prize is in the mail.

@@DoctorProph3t I'm so honored! I've always wanted to make a difference. This is only the beginning for me as I will continue to push myself to greater heights and who knows, perhaps my contributions will impact the future generations long after I'm gone. But yeah my cat is indeed a cutie pie.

Omg me too! I found her at a shelter though. We named her Gucci as a joke until we realized well . She actually is!

OwO

r/punpatrol

they're mewtants

A CATastrophe of a dad joke. Well done!

No. Stay

You should look up lynx point siamese, because I'm pretty sure that's how the breed started. They're awesome

I searched up Siamese human. They did not have super cute boots or a brown mask.

For guinea pig and rabbits the variation is called himalayan if I recall correctly. Red eyes (signs of albinism, humans and I believe cats rarely show pink eye albinism due to different eye structures), white bodies with black tipped parts like the nose, ears, feet, etc.

Thank you for convincing me to look that up

Naji Bro I’m Siamese human cause I’m Thai

Carlo Riel Mendez Humans do show red eye albinism.

Cats love milk, but would they like Milk Steak?

@@WSmith1984 I'm sure they'll eat milk stake with side of jellybeans, raw, ofcourse.

came to comment section just for this. was not disapointed.

Stasys Čhepulis Mee ow!!! 🐈

Tail beanie 😂

well, not fully related to the video but i can say you're smart. now i know why most tortoises are female

Me too Jerry Rupprecht 👍. 👁 ❤️ 🐈

I have a flame point siamese, this makes total sense

Jerry Rupprecht Siamese are the BEST!!!

I think I have a siamese cat but he's all brown except for his belly and paws.

I have 2 and the definitely get darker with age

I give you my condolences.

F

but they just want to talk to you :P

Himayalan ragdoll- and FUCKIN SAME LITERALLY NEVER GETS A SORE THROAT EITHER??????

Cheeseybacun why? It’s adorable!

Siamese are just like that. that is part of there breed. the only thing that could help is to get the cat tired by exercise and playing. they have a lot of energy.

@@thatgirlreacts5465 Trust me, it gets rather tiresome after 12 years.

Jonathas Cordeiro hahaha

Mine no longer has that particular body part, but the bit that's left is just a tiny brown dot when he rolls onto his back. It'd be very tempting to poke, except, well... no.

Having had male smeeze rats - I totally second this. The balls are one of the darkest (and also, funnily enough, the softest furred) parts of a siamese rat.

@@JustAnotherBuckyLover how do you know they're soft

@@clamdove3292 He merely conducted scientific research

Or a geezer meezer sneezer.

Awwww!!!

Oooh, meezer insider joke! 🌟🌟👏👏💞

My Siamese gets sneezey too! Usually, once he starts sneezing, he can't stop until he gets to 30. I feel so bad every time, but also can't help but laugh. Thankfully he only does this like once every couple months.

All white you mean? I think he said the enzyme that makes them darker doesn't work in warm temperatures.

They will turn all white if they are in a very warm environment for weeks on end I imagine as the enzyme will denature and lose it's function. Though I am unsure if the melanin is stable without being replenished. If that is the case, no coloration will be lost, but if you find a way to cool your cat, they will turn all black. That's ill advised and not recommended though, as reducing any warm blooded creatures body temperature can lead to damage if it is near their core and is very uncomfortable for the creature.

My friend has an indoor/outdoor Siamese cat in FL w/a kitty flap. The fur changes seasonally growing darker or lighter depending on the time of year & how much he comes inside for A/C. Sometimes he looks almost all brown, as he's one of the few cats I've ever seen to prefer shade over a sunny spot.

I know this was phrased backwards, but even if the cat was kept in a cold* environment, they'd never be completely black. Siamese have another gene on top of the one that codes for the temperature sensitive enzyme - the Himalayan gene, which they must have two of in order to express the point gene to begin with (afaik). The Himalayan gene is a dilution gene. It means that the cat *cannot* be black - all black is lightened to chocolate. This is why you can sometimes see colorpoint cats with different colors - there are different degrees to which dilution can be inherited. Black becomes brown becomes blue (darker grey) becomes lilac (silver or sometimes even lighter than that!); this depends on "how many," dilution genes are inherited. Some breeders breed "seal," point siamese, which can look black, but are actually a very dark brown. None of that has anything to do with the colorpoint gene, either! It's a completely separate mechanism that goes into making these cuties. I also know that they can have patterns (tabby, calico/tortoiseshell) and that sometimes colorpoint cats can be red based (cream / ginger / orange) but still only present at the points. Kind of sad that this was left out since it's actually what gives lots of breeds that strange variable brown look - ragdolls, himalayans, burmese, toninkese, etc. Just like people, as animals get older their bodies begin to become worse at holding in heat. Siamese cats will never stay the same - not just because of environmental factors, but their bodies become colder as they age, meaning that even if they're kept in the same temperature their entire lives, they will slowly become darker. Some very old Siamese cats may eventually have an almost entirely brown coat!

@@fernfeather7665 Thank you, that's interesting information. I once had a Burmese female who had an almost uniform dark, red-brown colour....no points, no socks, etc. Most that I have seen (not that many) have varying degrees of Siamese-like markings, in that their ears, nose, and feet may be darker, but essentially the same colour.

We are Siamese if you please.

Aside from lady and the tramp, I didn’t know they had a bad rap. I’ve had numerous Siamese cats in my life, and they are sweet, talkative kitties.

Myth busting time: I don't know where you heard that "barely reflective" thing, but according to breeders (and nighttime photos), the tapetum lucidum in their eyes is totally fine and normal.

*yes*

It isn't. That's actually a completely different gene that can express in oriental breeds without the colorpoint coat. However, the white masking gene will cause blue when it expresses over the eyes and deafness when expressed over the ears.

Melanin! Melatonin is something completely different

@@Camphorous Actually, the blue eyes _are_ caused by that gene. Every single pointed cat, regardless of breed, is _always_ blue-eyed. This is because points are a form of albinism. Mink and Burmese/sepia cats (caused by a mutated point gene, which allows slightly more colour) can have eye colours besides blue, but it's rare to uncommon depending on the breed.

Lack of melatonin is why they don’t sleep.

@@themermaidstale5008 LOL

I only got it after reading your comment.

@@xXGeth270Xx de-light-ful

alisoncircus There are a few degrees F in 1 degree C. The script was probably in F originally.

Actually, the temp is about that much less in the extremities. That is why you don't take the temp of cats or humans from the extremities. It is that different. And in sled dogs, for example, their legs can be over ten degrees lower in temp than the core temp.

I just used my thermal imager on both of my Maine Coons. Core body temperature (externally) was ~75F and the paws and tail were ~68F. 7F temperature spread.

maybe, but i know that in general siamese cats get darker with age. i live in brazil (pretty hot) and my siamese cat of 9 years who was very white as a kitten is now brown

I went away on a 3 week business trip for work in January of 2010. During that time, my penny-pinching cousin, who was looking in periodically on the cat and the house, became bothered by my thermostat being at such a wasteful temp with no one home and dialed the heat waaaaay back. When I arrived home the house was about 49 degrees F inside ...and the cat noticeably much much darker all over than I left her. It wasn't until spring when she started regaining her contrast again, although it never was quite the same again.

beatriz b m literally same!!

Yes, when we had a ~40°C all summer my cat went all white but quickly returned to normal in the autumn.

3 possums - yes, that is exactly what happens. As a child living in Indiana, we owned a pure-bred Siamese. She was a mostly indoor kittie - with quite a few outdoor excursions. Her coat definitely was ver dark towards the end of her life. Later in life, I lived in Tucson, Arizona. In that part of Arizona, it seldom gets below freezing, even in winter. My ex owned a Siamese, which was nearly all pure white, at the age of about 3.

hehe

Hmm, interesting! I also know several men who have ginger hair, only in their beards. I'd love to know the science of that too.

How can you spell "hairs" correctly, but go for a completely different spelling for "HAIR"? Also, *phenotype.

@@craigcorson3036 That misspelling is simple.. typing too fast and not checking for mistakes... excuse I just did that and need to remove the 's' from 'checking'.

@@craigcorson3036 You never have any typos, and are puzzled by people who do have them, which is only like 99.99% of the population?

It's the same. But they can have a broken color pattern caused by varying amounts of melanin in the skin on their feet that gives them the white mitts. I have two Ragdolls. One has dark feet, mask & tail with the traditional sable coloring, the other has white mitts and her color is called blue lynx point mitted. Her extremities are a blue-grey with faint darker stripes. Her body is a lighter, softer grey than her extremities and you can't really see the stripes, except on her legs, face and tail. They're both 11 now, so their bodies have darkened, but they never get as dark as their color points.

Yes, I assume it’s just like how a tuxedo cat (black and white), for example, has areas of white throughout the coat. Ragdolls has Birmans with mittens etc just have those areas of white fur that would occur with or without the tyrosinase mutation.

No, they have the "white spotting" gene which produces white patches no matter the temperature of the body part - just like it does with simple bicolour cats, but Birmans and Ragdolls also have the Siamese gene added on top.

Jake Andersen Well siamese cat originated from Thailand. So I don’t think there will be much differences in term of coloration.

The temperature of their environment can have some impact on their color, If they spend a lot of time outdoors they will darken slightly in the winter and lighten in the summer. They also will darken over time as they grow and the average temperature at the surface of their skin is slightly less than their core.

The what?

@@hclnet wow, have you seen this happen in these cats?

@@ratsalad178 Yes I've had several and they all darkened as they aged. I adopted a red/flame-point (the color points are orange) who was an outdoor cat, but became an indoor cat and he became much more orange in the months after living inside.

Random Dude how are ya supposed to say it? Lol

@@somethingwithbungalows well he's pronouncing it w a common accent so it's fine... but generally the word should be pronounced jag-wohr

@@nunya321 it's jag-w(aa)r, i'm not sure if it's a accent but i pronounce it that way

Yeah lucky for us all the big and small cats are all very cat like. They sure have plenty differences. But the things that make us humans go “aw look at that cutie!” they all pretty much share. And I’ll take normal house cat that can’t accidentally bite a big part of my leg of when it gets too excited when it wants to play with me over a Jaguar anytime. And house cats are at least a little domesticated

I'm so sorry. It's never easy to lose part of your family.

*hug* It's so hard, they aren't just a pet, they are a part of you forever. I hope that some day you will be able to look back on her memories and smile instead of cry.

Thank you both for your kind words..she died in my arms laying in bed, 2 hours before the vet appointment to have her put to sleep..stupid cancer but Im glad I got to love her for 14 years! Very blessed

well a shirt tan is more or less that. (only the lower arms and face is tanned)

Some do!

They do have it

This type of albinism is possible in humans too!

Any pictures of them??

I think it depends of the color their tips get, for exemple, I have a Himalayan cat who have cream shades at his ears, paws and tail, so he probably would be full cream if his proteins worked properly.

Depends, one of the Siamese closer relatives, the Burmese traditionally come in dark brown but nowadays they come in a number of other colours too.