Warriors with real genetics: Squirrelflight and Leafpool by Flamecloud

Flamecloud takes a look at the linked sisters and their genetics.

Hello folks, your fellow Earthling is here to talk about some more genetics.

If you don’t know anything about genetics, or cat genetics, you should either check out my previous article wear I (try) to explain them: Click here!
Or, do some research because genetics or fun.

Or you can just wing it, which is fine as well.

Anyway, last article I talked about Firestar and how he can not be a ginger. We shall go forth with the understanding that for the sake of this article he is a black cat.

Normally, I would trace his mate’s pedigree as far back as it will go and then work from there. However, Sandstorm currently has no cannon parents. At one point, she was Redtail’s daughter, but tortishell toms can not have children. So, we’re just going to say that Sandstorm can be the color she is.

Since Sandstorm has tabby stripes, we can say that she is XoXo, A-, T-.

Now, on to the kits, Squirrelflight and Leafpool.

Squirrelflight is described as a dark ginger she cat with one white paw and a floofy tail. As I described in my past article, white markings are caused by the “S” gene, which is codominant. For Squirrelflight to have the “S” gene, one of her parents must carry it. Co-dominant genes are visible when they are present, so since neither Firestar nor Sandstorm have any white markings, Squirrelflight can not either.

Next, time to talk about her ginger coloring. For a she-cat to be ginger, she has to get a X chromosome carrying the ginger gene from each parent. If Firestar was a ginger, this would be possible. However, we have already determined (see my other article) that Firestar can’t actually be ginger.

That means that Squirrelflight can only have one ginger chromosome, and is therefor a tortoiseshell.

Next, Leafpool. Leafpool is a brown tabby with white chest and paws. Her tabby pattern is possible, because she could have easily gotten those genes from her mother, who is a tabby as well. However, as we covered with her sister, she can not have white markings.

And back to ginger. Since Sandstorm has two copies of the ginger gene, Leafpool must receive one of them. This makes her a torbie (tortishell with tabby markings). I also head cannon her as a chocolate torbie, genes she could have gotten from either side of the family since we know Firestar carries him (based on his mother’s coloring) and we don’t know weather or not Sandstorm does.

I’m going to stop this article here, because to look at any further kits I would have to look at Bramblestar’s family tree, which is large enough to merit an article of its own.

I hope you enjoyed it!