thumb|upright|[[Chelsea Clinton's cat Socks (1989–2009) lived in the White House from 1993 to 2001. Socks was a bicolor cat with low-grade spotting, or tuxedo cat.]]
A bicolor cat (or bicolour cat in Commonwealth English) is a cat with white fur combined with fur of some other color, for example, solid black, tabby, or colorpointed.
Solid-color bicolor cats occur because there is a white spotting gene present with a recessive allele of the agouti gene. The agouti gene evens out the striped pattern within coat colors. In contrast, tabby cats have an agouti gene that produces striping of the coat. The Abyssinian has agouti (ticked tabby) fur, giving the appearance of even color with color-banded hairs.
Bicolor patterns
thumb|Bicolor grade chart, ranging from 1 (solid colored) to 10 (solid white)
thumb|Bicolor pattern chart
Bicoloration in cats is graded from one to ten; with one being completely colored, and ten being completely white. There are also several patterns with their own names. they are mostly white (generally more than 75% white). They have color around their ears and tail, separated by white coloring.
- Seychellois Neuvieme is white with colored tail and head splashes (classic Turkish Van pattern).
- Seychellois Huitieme is white with colored tail and head splashes plus additional splashes of color on the legs.
- Seychellois Septieme is white with splashes of color on the legs and body in addition to those on the head and the colored tail.
This pattern type has high-grade white spotting. The coat pattern ranges from seven to nine on the Bicolor grade chart.
Harlequin
thumb|upright|Bi-color cat with a harlequin pattern coat
Another type of color-and-white cat is the harlequin patterned bicolor cat. or Julius cat is a bicolor cat with low-grade white spotting (generally close to 25% white) in the coat. The term "tuxedo cats" is typically used for black-and-white colored cats, but tuxedo patterned cats come in all cat colors. They are called tuxedo cats due to the resemblance to the black-tie formal wear of the same name; however, the origins of the term "tuxedo cat" are murky at best, with linguist Cecily Raysor Hancock having been only able to track the term back to the early 1980s in America.
To be considered a true tuxedo cat, the feline's coloring should consist of a colored coat, with white fur limited to the paws, belly, chest, throat, often the chin, and sometimes the tail.
Genetics of coat patterns
The basic colors and patterns of cat fur are defined by fewer than ten genes. Cats with white color in their coats are thought to have a mutant white-spotting gene that prevents the formation of coat color in patches over the cat's body. This gene has been investigated in several species, particularly mice, and is co-dominant to normal coat color as it prevents the migration of melanocytes into the developing hair follicles. The genetics of this pattern are not as well understood in cats but at least some of the genes involved in melanocyte migration and survival may play a role similar as in other animals.
Three genotypes possible with the S (white spotting) gene, with capital S standing for a wild-type copy and lower-case s standing for the mutant. In agouti cats the gene is turned on and off as the hair grows, producing hairs with alternating stripes yellow and black.
Bicolored cat breeds
The bicolor coat coloration is not restricted to a specific breed of cat. However, some breeds have bicolor coats in their breed standards. These include the Ragdoll, American Shorthair, Manx, British Shorthair, and Turkish Angora. The Turkish Van and Snowshoe In the musical Cats, the character Mr. Mistoffelees is a tuxedo cat. Mr. Mistoffelees is a stage magician wearing a lacy ruff and bow tie. The character Bustopher Jones outfit consists of a tuxedo and spats. The musical differed from the book in that the characters included cats with many different coat colors, rather than just bicolor cats, but it retains the repeated assertion that "Jellicle cats are black and white." Cats with these markings also played a starring role in the drawings illustrating The Unadulterated Cat, a book written by Terry Pratchett, with cartoons by Gray Jolliffe.
Other cartoon bicolor cats include Sylvester the Cat, Felix the Cat, Tom Cat from Tom and Jerry, Oggy from Oggy and the Cockroaches, Blackie the Cat from The Cat that Hated People, Ventriloquist Cat, Krazy Kat, Jess from Postman Pat, Kitty Softpaws from the Shrek spin-off Puss in Boots and its sequel, Disney's Figaro, the Cat in the Hat from the Dr. Seuss book of the same name, Beans from Looney Tunes, Penelope Pussycat, Sebastian the cat from Josie and the Pussycats, and Chao from Osamu Tezuka's Unico series. A bicolor cat named Mittens is one of the main characters in the 2008 Disney animated film Bolt.
A tuxedo cat is also the protagonist of the popular children's book Tip-Top Cat, and another is the giant Kat Kong in the children's book of the same name. Bo, a character from the TV series Abby Hatcher, is a "Fuzzly" who resembles a tuxedo cat. Tuxedos are one of the ten breeds of cats in the video game Minecraft. Morgana, a playable character in the JRPG Persona 5, is a bicolor cat. Klonoa, the main character of the titular Klonoa games, closely resembles a tuxedo cat. Cait Sith, a playable character from the video game Final Fantasy VII is a tuxedo cat.
Notable bicolor cats
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- Félicette, the first cat in space
- Palmerston, a black-and-white bicolor who was Chief Mouser of the UK Foreign & Commonwealth Office, Whitehall, London, 2016–2020
- Socks Clinton (1989–2009), the pet cat of the family of former US President Bill Clinton