Domestic cats have been bred and have evolved to have a plethora of fur colors and coat patterns. There are of course widespread and familiar patterns like tuxedo, calico, tortoiseshell, tabby, and Russian Blue, but less common coat patterns tend to attract the most attention.
When felines with unusual coats began showing up in northern Europe around 17 years ago, they immediately attracted the attention of animal lovers and scientists, who marveled at the new patterns and wondered what caused the animals to have such interesting fur patterns. After years of research, scientists recently identified the genetic mutation that created this coat pattern.
A New Pattern Found Among Feral Cats in Finland
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In central Finland in 2007, several people began noticing that feral felines in the region had an unfamiliar, distinct fur pattern. While these felines resembled black-and-white tuxedos in their faces, builds, and fur colors, their patterning was different: the fur on their backs started black at the roots and gradually turned fully white at the tips and the fur on their tails was mostly or entirely white.
Many Finnish people began adopting these felines. Researchers who learned about these animals dubbed the genetic mutation caused their unique fur patterns “the Finnish mutation” and named the animals themselves salmiak after the salty licorice popular in Finland that their salt-and-pepper fur patterns resembled. The exact cause of the Finnish mutation would not be positively identified until years later, however.
Analyze Cat: The Search for the Mysterious Mutation
Starting in 2019, feline geneticist Heidi Anderson led a team of experts at Mars Petcare Science & Diagnostics in Helsinki, Finland, in a research study to discover the cause of this mutation. Anderson and her team published their findings in the scientific journal Animal Genetics earlier this May.
Anderson and her team reached out to local pet owners, asking for volunteers to bring their animals that had the fur pattern in for testing. At first, the scientists believed that the pattern was another variation on the dilution gene, which fades the orange and black base colors in feline fur to create the different colors and patterns that domestic cats display. The team conducted DNA tests on five of the animals that had been brought in, but they all tested negative for the genetic mutation that caused white fur.
Wanting to know more, the team then sequenced the entire genome of two of the cats and found a deletion in the genetic sequence near their KIT genes, which encode the presence of white fur in an animal’s coat. Variations in the KIT gene had previously been shown to cause piebald patterns (white patches on darker fur) in other animals like horses and rats. The researchers then conducted a specific test that showed that the felines that had this mutation inherited it from one or both of their parents, showing that this mutation is a recessive trait.
Final Thoughts
Cat enthusiasts were definitely excited by the initial discovery of the salmiaks in Finland years ago, and they can be happy now that we finally know what causes these beautiful felines to develop their distinct candy-colored fur. Will more salmiaks show up in Finland now that they’ve been adopted into households and owners know that salmiak parents can pass their recessive fur pattern down to their children? We can’t predict the future, but we can at least follow how the pattern unfolds.
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