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Contrary to popular belief, white cats with blue, orange or green eyes are not albino. Albino cats, such as the one in this photo, have pink (unpigmented) or bluish-pink eyes and, like most albino animals, their eyes are sensitive to light. The white colour in cats is due to a gene that masks any other colour genes (this is why white cats can have non-white or bi-colour kittens). Albinism is a different mutation that causes the absence of colour, not the covering up of colour. When owners talk about having green-eyed or orange-eyed albino cats, they mean green-eyed or orange-eyed "dominant white" cats. In this context, dominant means a gene that masks other genes, it does not mean the cat has a dominant personality.
Recessive white is an alternate name for the blue-eyed/pink-eyed albino gene which is part of the colourpoint series of genes. The white spotting gene can sometimes produced solid white cats and is also sometimes called recessive white.
It is also a fallacy that "all blue-eyed white cats are born deaf". All kittens are born blue-eyed and with their ears folded down. Whether they will stay blue-eyed and whether they will be deaf can only be ascertained after a few weeks. Not all blue-eyed white cats will be deaf (as this article explains).
DOMINANT WHITE
Dominant white (more properly "epistatic white" since it occurs on a different gene to the black-based or red-based colours) denoted by the gene symbol "W", is the colour associated with deafness in cats. Dominant white masks all other colours and cats may have blue, orange or odd eyes. Those with blue eyes have a high chance of deafness. Those with one blue eye have a high chance of deafness on the blue-eyed side. Those with orange eyes are far less likely to be deaf. Some dominant white kittens are born with smudges of coloured fur on top of the head where the colour is incompletely masked, this smudge of colour usually disappears by adulthood, but kittens with colour smudges are more likely to have normal hearing. These cats are not albinos; genetically they can be any colour, but the white is dominant to those other colours (albinism is an absence of other colours).
Lacy has the dominant white gene associated with blue eyes and deafness (Lacy is deaf). Lacy owns Greg Schultz who refers to her as "The Queen".
In some animals, the blue-eyed white trait is sex-linked (carried on the X chromosome) and is found in males more often than in females. In cats, the gene for white is carried on an autosome (a chromosome other than the X or Y sex chromosomes) and the trait occurs equally in male and female cats. Blue-eyed white is not sex-linked in cats.
WHITE SPOTTING
The gene for white spotting, denoted by the gene symbol "S", can also create the impression of a self white cat. This gene is semi-dominant and is variable in the way it is expressed - a cat may have no visible white spots or may be wholly white and all stages in between those two extremes. Unlike dominant white, white spotting is not linked to deafness.
Some white cats are due to the very variable expression of the gene for white spotting. The diagram above shows a typical progression from solid colour through to solid white caused by this gene. The number by each diagram is the "Grade" of spotting from Grade 0 (no white spotting) through to Grade 10 where white spotting has obscured all of the base colour. Grade 10 white spotted cats resemble solid white cats, but are rarely deaf. Again, small spots of colour may be discernible on cats that appear solid white due to the white spotting gene.
ALBINO CATS
Albino is generally thought of as pure white, but the situation in cats is more complex. There are five known alleles for albinism: blue-eyed albino ("ca"), pink-eyed albino ("c"), Burmese pattern ("cb"), Siamese pattern ("cs")and full colour (non-albino, "C"). Full colour is dominant to all of the other four alleles. Burmese pattern is incompletely dominant to Siamese pattern; cats that inherit one of each of those genes will be intermediate in pattern and is known as Tonkinese. A quirk of the Siamese form of albinism is that it is temperature dependent with warm areas of the body being paler than cooler areas. For this reason, it is often described as "colour restriction" rather than albinism. Pink-eyed albino appears to be recessive to all of the other albino mutations. Albinism is not linked to deafness in cats ("dominant white" (W) is the gene linked to deafness).
In 1927, judge Mrs Basnett reported on the Paris Cat Show held on 14th and 15th of January by the Cat Club de France and wrote "One lady brought for my inspection a Siamese Albino of about 4 months; I could not see a trace of any shading anywhere on the white coat, tail, legs, ears or mask; the eyes were a very beautiful blue, and their fiery centre seemed to be accentuated by the absence of all shading. In appearance it was a very typical Siamese with the long sleek body and whip tail, and a very beautiful wedge-shaped head and face."
More recently an Albino Siamese has been bred, though only time will tell if it will be perpetuated as a breed. It is a completely white Siamese-type cat with bluish-pink eyes (true "pink eyes" are uncommon due to the physical structure of a cats' eyes). The "European Albino" bred in Belgium is a European shorthair type white cat with ruby-red eyes which have pale translucent blue irises. The albino cats reported in Europe and the USA seem to be intermediate between pink-eyed albino and blue-eyed albino. A true pink-eyed albino was reported in 1931 and again in 1980s in the USA.
In the Ojos Azules cat, typified by blue eyes in combination with colours other than white or colourpoint, the homozygous form of the gene appears to cause dead albino kittens.
An albino kitten was born at Chelmsford Cats Protection League shelter in the 1990s and required handrearing. It was described as white furred and having very pale pink ears, nose leather and paw pads though I have no information on its long term survival. Albino kittens have turned up more recently in the Bengal breed, unsurprising since albinism is found in the Asian Leopard Cat (the wild parent of the Bengal).
WHITE CATS AND DEAFNESS
A few years back I was asked three related questions on a newsgroup. This article is adapted from my answer.
- Are white cats, particularly blue eyed white cats, always deaf or is this an old wives' tale?
- Is deafness linked only to odd-eyed white cats?
- Some blue-eyed whites aren't deaf - why?
There is an established link between the white coat color, blue eyes and deafness. The tapetum lucidum is generated from the same stem cells as melanocytes (pigment cells). The blue eyes in a piebald or epistatic white cat indicates a lack of tapetum. Deafness is caused by an absence of a cell layer in the inner ear that originates from the same stem cells as well. In odd-eyed white cats, the ear on the blue-eyed side may be deaf, but the one on the orange-eyed side usually has normal hearing. Not all blue-eyed whites will be deaf since there are several different genes causing the same physical attributes (whiteness, blue-eyedness) so it all depends on the cat's genotype (its genetic make-up) not its phenotype (its physical appearance). Some people claim that 99% of blue-eyed white cats are deaf. This is inaccurate because blue-eyedness and whiteness can both be caused by different genes. It all depends on what genes the cat has inherited. These are the actual figures from scientific studies around the world. The percentages are given in ranges because results are different in different areas, partly because of the different genes found in the cat population. Where a cat is classed as deaf, the deafness may affect one or both ears.
95% of the general cat population is non-white cats (i.e. not pure white) and congenital deafness is extremely rare in non-white cats.
5% of the general cat population is white cats (i.e. pure white). 15-40% of these pure white cats have one or two blue-eyes.
Of those white cats with one or two blue eyes, 60-80% are deaf; 20-40% have normal hearing; 30-40% had one blue eye and were deaf while 60-70% had one blue eye and normal hearing.
Of the 5% of white cats in the overall population, 60-80% had eyes of other colors (e.g. orange, green). Of those 10- 20% were deaf and 80-90% had normal hearing.
Deaf white cats with one or two blue eyes account for 0.25 - 1.5 of total cat population
Total number of cats with white coat and blue eyes account for 0.75 - 2.0% of total cat population
It is evident from those studies that blue eyed whites exhibit a higher incidence of deafness than do orange/green eyed whites or non-white cats! But not all blue eyed whites are deaf and here's why:-
There is a known link between white coat color, blue eyes and deafness - but since the coat and eye color can be caused by different genes it means that only some blue eyed whites are deaf. There is a gene/gene complex which causes white coat, blue eyes and deafness, but not all cats get their white coat and blue eyes from that particular gene, so not all white cats will be deaf.
If the cat is a Foreign/Oriental White, it carries the gene for 'Siamese Blue Eyes' which is not linked to deafness (the gene for Siamese Blue Eyes is linked to cross-eyes instead). Siamese blue eyes have a reflective tapetum, but this is depigmented because the Siamese colour is caused by albinism. This depigmentation gives the red-eye with flash cameras. Random matings can mean that this gene sometimes appears in non Oriental-looking cats which have colorpoint cats in their ancestry.
Crystal (owned by Alana Harley, Vancouver Island, Canada) has two different types of blue eye.
As this photo shows, one eye has normal green eye-shine and the other has pink eye shine. Depigmentation gives the red-eye with flash cameras
Albino cats are also white. True albinism causes pinkish eyes, but some albinos or partial albinos have pale blue eyes. There are too few albino cats studied to draw firm conclusions, but this mutation is not necessarily linked with deafness. It is also hard for a cat owner to determine whether their cat is a blue-eyed albino cat rather than an ordinary blue-eyed white.
Jamie Linton, who volunteers at a shelter in California, came across this blue-eyed white young cat. The blue is restricted to an inner ring around the pupil, fading to white around the outside of the iris. It wasn't known if the cat was deaf. The most likely explanation seems to be that pigment remained concentrated at either end of the iris muscles as the eye grew, rather than being distributed evenly - a bit like pulling toffee where the middle section goes pale as it it stretched and the more intense colour remains at either end.
There is also a gene for blue eyes which is inherited separately from coat color. This is the gene responsible for the Ojos Azules breed. If the cat is white colored, there is no easy way of telling whether it has the blue-eyed-deaf-ear type gene or the Ojos-Azules-blue-eyes type gene. It's only possible to tell that a cat has this particular gene if the cat is non-white and has blue eyes. Genes for blue eyes independent of coat color may be more common than previously realised. I have encountered three blue-eyed random-bred cats (one ginger, one silver tabby, one brown tabby) in one UK town between 1989 and 1995. This may be the same gene as Ojos Azules, or it may be due to different gene mutations. Other types of blue eye are being discovered in all-white cats in Asia, the blue is different than Siamese Blue Eyes, but does not seem to cause deafness.
The Lady Chablis, belonging to Denise Parmentier, is an odd-eyed white. One eye is yellow-green and the other is blue. She has perfect hearing.
Odd-eyed white cat photographed by Rodrigo Arancibia in Iquique, Chile. She shows no sign of deafness. her kittens are solid white, indicating the dominant white gene.
The white coat can be caused either by a gene for white coloration or by a gene for 'white patching' - sometimes the white patching is so extensive that the cat appears solid white. If the white cat exhibited a few colored hairs or a smudge of color on its body (usually on the head) as a kitten, then it should have normal hearing even if it has blue eyes because it has inherited a non-deafness causing gene for white coat! However, blue-eyed bicolour cats occur and the more white they have in the region of their eyes and ears, the more likely they are to be deaf. This is because one of those genes for white affects the development of both the eyes and ears - it causes lack of eye pigmentation (i.e. blue eyes) and deafness - and since the eyes and ears are close together, if that gene affects that area of the body, it is likely to affect both sense organs (hence odd eyed whites may be deaf on the blue-eyed side).
Aries, a blue-eyed silver-tabby-and-white Norwegian Forest Cat bred by Raquel Ortega Cormenzana of MONTEGANCEDO*ES (Madrid). Sometimes bicolour cats with white faces have blue eyes. Aries has has perfect hearing because the white does not extend to the ears.
Congenital deafness can also be caused by a variety of hereditary factors, just as in humans. Due to random mutation or the wide gene pool, cats of any color can be born deaf (probably less than 1%) - including orange-eyed whites. Hence deaf white cats with non-blue eyes can occasionally appear and in these cases the deafness is not linked to coat color. Deafness can also be caused by illness or injury, so a person adopting a deaf cat may not know whether the cat was born that way or became deaf later on.
There are also green-eyed white cats, the Russian Angora is green-eyed and white is a favorite color. Green-eyed white cats have a lower incidence of deafness than blue-eyed white cats because the gene for white they carry does not normally affect their eye color. It is similar for orange eyed whites; they rarely have congenital deafness. Genetic expression is very variable and orange-eyed/odd-eyed/blue-eyed whites are interbred in many breeds - hence up to 20% of non-blue-eyed, white cats may have some degree of hearing impairment depending on what gene is causing them to have a white coat.
So overall, blue-eyed white cats stand a higher than usual chance of being deaf; but they are not guaranteed to be deaf. Odd-eyed white cats may be deaf on the blue-eyed side. If you have a deaf white cat, it is not advisable to breed from it as this would pass the trait along. Deaf white cats are banned from exhibition or breeding by some fancies in Europe and there is a move to reduce or eliminate this trait from British breeding lines of various breeds. Deafness can cause problems because a cat cannot hear danger approaching. It can cause problems to breeders because deaf female cats cannot hear their kittens crying out and may neglect them. Deaf kittens cannot hear their mother calling to them and may get lost. Deaf cats also seem to have no volume control when meowing. For more information see Living With a Deaf Cat... more
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