Tabby Cats Are Mutants, Study Finds Cat owners, call Professor X
and ask him to let your feline friend join the X-Men because a
recent study shows that some tabby cats are mutants. Dr. Stephen
O’Brien, a geneticist at the St. Petersburg University of
Russia, has discovered a new gene in felines called Taqpep as
well as another gene that they have dubbed EdN3, which controls
the hair color in a cat’s coat pattern. The Taqpep gene is
common to both wild cheetahs and domesticated felines but is a
mutation of a gene that produces the cheetah’s spots and a
tabby’s stripes. Taqpep’s mutation is responsible for a blotchy
stripe pattern in both domesticated cats and a rare breed of big
cat called the King Cheetah, who are often found in South
Africa. As for their house cat cousins, more tabbies in Europe
have the mutation, while felines in the US are striped. In order
to study regular cats and their wild cousins, the researchers
used DNA and tissue samples from feral cats in Northern
California. They also took a tiny