Originally posted by catlover4ever
You might find this interesting.....from Cat Fancy Magazine, October issue...."Black Beauties"

"But what is a black cat?. Genetically, black cats are tabbies. The gene that causes the banding we associate with tabbies has a non-banded form, so cats that are black with this form of the gene have no banding between the tabby stripes, masking the tabby pattern. This essentially means that he coat has black stripes on a black background."
This is very interesting. It may explain why my black and white Hercule (at the RB now) had some stripes on the black parts, only visible to the sun. These stripes looked more or less "orange". And it explains why black or black and white kitties can have tabby mothers, and that the other brothers and sisters can all be tabbies.