Question

a female black mackerel stripe tabby with no white spots mated. with a male orange tabby cat. Among the non-orange kittens from this mating, half show a tabby pattern and half are solid black

WHAT MUST the two parents agouti genotypes be? Also, what is the probability of a newborn kitten being an orange male (like the father)

Gene Phenotype Allele Designation Pattern of Inheritance Agouti Black Orange Xoxo or Xooy Xoxo XoXº or Xo+Y TT Tabby T'T Tube Tito Toto Agouti Dominant Non-agouti Epistatic to tabby (aa) Black Dominant, masked by Brown orange Orange Co-Dominant and Calico/ Tortoiseshell sex-linked; epistatic Black to agouti and black Mackeral tabby (Co-) Dominance Blotched tabby hierarchy: Abyssinian tabby T>T>t Blotched/Mackeral Tabby pattern is Abyssinian/Mackeral masked by non- Blotched/Abyssinian agouti Full color Dominance Burmese hierarchy: Siamese C> > > > Tonkinese Environment affects Blue-eyed albino expression pattern Pink-eyed albino Not dilute Dominant Dilute >1/2 spotting Incomplete <1/2 spotting dominance No spotting Silver Dominant Not silver Color extension Dilute Piebald spotting SIS: 5152 5252 - Pigment inhibitor White W- ww Dominant with pleiotropic effects Dominant Fur length Completely white Not all white Short fur Long fur Dies in utero Manx tail Long tail Manx MM Mm Recessive lethal mm

Answer 1

As the condition states that half of the kitten produced with the tabby pattern while other with the solid black pattern then the agouti genotype of the parent must have been hide in this situation as the non-agouti phenotype is epistatic to tabby. Thus keeping the condition in front genotypes of parents for agouti strain will be Aa and aa where one parent is agouti with the heterozygous genotype while others are a non-agouti strain which will be hidden in the tabby condition. This has been considered by seeing the probability of patterns found in the offsprings.

Also if the parent is having the black and orange strain then the male kitten will never get the orange color again as the father rather it will form in the black pattern as the female is black and will donate only the recessive phenotype in the form of Xo+. Thus the probability of finding the orange male in the offspring will be zero.

Rest the explanation for the first paragraph of the answer has been given in the following image for the reference: