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Fan Articles
Silentwisp examines the genetics in Warriors
Hello, I am Si, and welcome to my first article! This is about what Firestar and his relatives would look like if Warriors were genetically accurate. Before we start, here are some things about cat genetics.
1. The male kits get their mom’s color.
2. Female kits get both parents’ colors.
3. Green overpowers blue eyes, and amber mixes with green to make hazel.
4. Recessive genes include floof and solid pelts.
5. The only ways to get white cats are having a maxed-out tuxedo gene, or the cat is albino.
Starting with Firestar, let’s take a look at his parents!
Nutmeg: A brown and white tabby she-cat.
Jake: Ginger tom with green eyes.
Right off the bat, we’ve ruined a major prophecy.
Firestar keeps his green eyes, but now he’s a brown and white tabby! As stated earlier, male kits get their mom’s pelt, and the solid pelt gene is recessive, and his mom probably doesn’t carry the solid pelt gene either.
Now it’s Princess time!
Princess: A light brown tabby with long soft fur, and green eyes.
Princess would get BOTH colors, not just her mom’s, making her now a tortoiseshell cat! Luckily she keeps her green eyes. But the saddest thing is since she has floof, and that’s recessive, the dominant gene will make her fur short.
Let’s ruin Firestar’s children now!
Squirrelflight: Floof dark ginger tabby with green eyes and one white paw.
Leafpool: Short-furred pale tabby she-cat with amber eyes.
Leafpool’s eyes become green, and she becomes a calico.
Squirrelflight keeps her green eyes and also becomes a calico, but loses her floof!
Now time to ruin Firestar’s Grandchildren.
Lionblaze becomes a short-furred brown tabby, similar to nutmeg. He doesn’t lose his green eyes, though.
Jayfeather becomes a brown tabby also, and loses his blue eyes.
Hollyleaf becomes a calico because a solid pelt would be recessive. The only thing she keeps is her green eyes.
Going to Brambleclaw’s side, let’s look at his parents.
Tigerstar/claw: Dark brown tabby tom with amber eyes.
Goldenflower: Pale tabby she-cat with green eyes.
Tawnypelt becomes a tortoiseshell, with hazel eyes. There’s not much change for Tawnypelt.
Brambleclaw becomes a diluted ginger tabby, like his mom, with hazel eyes.
In my opinion, Warrior cats shouldn’t be genetically accurate.
Silent out!
π©΅π¦
Eagleflight (Aquila)ππΆ
βΛπ«§ΛΒ° pineblossom (she/her) β¨ππͺ you're my favorite flavor, bubble gum πΏπ β
mentor to skyshimmer! π¨π«π·![[an orange-and-white cat tears at a newspaper with its teeth and paws]](https://blogclan.katecary.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2024/08/gok3h17lx9l51.jpg)
Embers of a Summer Dawn (Emberdawn)
![[Flametail, Longtail, Feathertail, Cloudtail, and Talltail with literal depictions of their names]](https://blogclan.katecary.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2022/09/warriors_cats_names_taken_literally_by_iycewing_dc4uqth-fullview-385x300.jpg)
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β Nettlespring π₯
I agree, while I find correcting the genetics of warriors to be very fun and it’s a personal hobby of mine, it’s a kid’s series without much focus on realism, so the author’s shouldn’t waste their time dealing with nit picky details.
Quick question, where did you get your info from? I’m not saying your wrong, per se, but I’ve read contradicting information on some of your rules, especially number one. While male vs female does effect the inharitance of many genes (for example, ginger), I find it hard it imagine a situation where all the males end up as clones of their mothers. That’s not generally how heredity works for complex organisms like cats.
I’m not Si, but to answer your note about #1, according to the Cat Fanciers’ Association, “Male kittens always obtain both color genes from the dam.” This can be in the form of the same color(s) or diluted forms of the color(s).
I guess with so many conflicting genetics theories, info can get messed up between sources. Probably because pigment is carried in the X chromosomes, and females are XX, meaning that, in theory, they should be their two parent’s colours slapped together or have a proper dominant/recessive thing going on, whereas males are XY (ignoring XXY makes here) and that X thing comes from their mother? I’m guessing that’s how Si got their info, but genetics comes with their own individual complexities and likely many more things that genealogists will discover I to the fuuutttuuurrreee π
So I’m guessing the genetics used here are just rules of genetics stripped down to the core. I’ve heard this similar theory before, then I got my big fat book on cats and read 17 pages of cat coat colour genetics and I still don’t understand, but genetics is very complex (I’ve always envied everyone who has the patience to make genetics articles)
Great article, though, Si!
Ohhh I understand where the misunderstanding is
The ‘Males get Mother’s colour from her X chromosome’ thing is only if either parent is ginger or the mother is tortoiseshell. But say if the father was black and the mother was brown tabby, then it’d be per recessive and dominant genes and little Punnett Squares and all that stuff. Some source probably misunderstood that as ‘A male always gets their mother’s colour,’ which is untrue, but since genetics is so complex and hard to understand, it simplified down to the unture above rule π
Fun fact, a “brown tabby” is actually called a black tabby :>
Oof I wasn’t thinking as I wrote that, I was just like ‘Yeah tabby whatever’
Thank you, though!
I would say it is possible for jayfeather to be gray, because he gets the recessive dilution gene from sandstorm. The diluted version of brown tabby is gray/silver tabby. Other than that, interesting article! π
Very good article!
I don’t know about ‘ this ‘ buti liked to read this, and it was very nice, and I can tell your pretty smart. Lucky you
Well done! Yeah, Warriors don’t need to be genetically accurate. I can’t see Firestar without his flame-colored fur!
Also, from experience, most kits have both of their parents fur color, whatever their gender is.
while this is a wonderful article, this ignores some genetics that would actually be too complicated to do for the whole article! i’ll do an article with the added complicated rules soon, but just to clarify, the “male kittens only get their mother’s color” is misleading! while there are many genes affected by gender, not all of them are, and it’s really just generalizing everything in my opinion. male kittens are not clones of their mothers, there is still variation! π
unrelated, but is it just me, or do a lot of the people here seem to get their information from that one “realistic genetics warriors” youtube video? (this is a joke but it’s kinda funny π )
The “light tabby” gene is also recessive (it makes “brown tabbies”, truly black tabbies, into gray/silver tabbies, and ginger tabbies into sandy tabbies). Sandstorm has this gene, but Firestar does not, causing their kits to be ginger/brown calicos, but both still carrying the gene. Crowfeather’s parents are Deadfoot (solid black, can’t decode his genes at the moment, let’s say he doesn’t carry the light tabby gene) and Ashfoot (gray tabby, carries this gene) so Crowfeather would be a black tabby (brown with black stripes) but carry the light tabby gene. If both Leafpool and Crowfeather carry this, it gives their kits chances of getting it too, making Jayfeather able to be a gray tabby like he is in the books. Hollyleaf would look just like her true mother and adopted mother, making the lie more believeable (and Jayfeather also believable, due to Brambleclaw carrying the light tabby gene from Goldenflower). Unfortunately, I do not find records of either Leafpool or Crowfeather carrying the fluffy gene, so Lionblaze loses his fluff *cry*
i believe the “light tabby” gene you’re talking about is the dilution gene π
yeah I forgot the name
I actually did this and went as far back as Palebird (while taking some liberties because we do that here) just to confirm that Jayfeather would actually stay the exact same, and Lionblaze and Hollyleaf can have floof. Also, due to genetics and the liberties I took, if Nutmeg was brown, ginger, and white, Firestar would’ve been ginger and white. So Jake would’ve been ginger and white with blue eyes because that’s what Crystal looked like. Moving on, if Nutmeg was a tortie (toms can’t be torties, which is why this is happening) Firestar would’ve been ginger and white. Basically; unless the tom has XXY chromosomes instead of XY, he can be a tortie. But it’s incredibly, incredibly rare for toms to have XXY. Most toms with tortie moms have their coat decided by their father’s appearance and their genetics. For instance, a ginger, brown, and white mom not carrying the light tabby gene and a gray tom who does carry it would have a black tabby (BROWN WITH BLACK STRIPES) tom. Due to the mom not carrying light tabby, there is no chance the tom can have gray fur. The dad carries light tabby and shows it, so he is not a black tabby, he is a gray tabby. Since both the mom and dad have black tabby on their fur, the tom gets black tabby. So since both Nutmeg and Jake would have ginger and white, Firestar gets ginger and white. Nutmeg’s eye colour is unconfirmed, so let’s just do green, and since green in the boss of blue, Firestar ends up being ginger and white with green eyes.
Cinnamon splotches will save the Clan..?
Okay Iβm never going to forget this.
There’s one thing I’ve been pondering (I’ve wanted to do something like this but so far I’ve only gotten up to Firestar): If Jake carries the black gene (which won’t show up because he has the red gene), then theoretically, Firestar might be a black cat like his brother Scourge! :0 While it’s still not “fire”, I feel as though it fits Firestar just a bit more than brown does
Since Jake is ginger, Firestar obtains his colouring from Princess, making him brown