The pretty black, white, and grey shade—named for a popular snack food in Finland, where this coat color has been making itself known—is thanks to a fur strand that starts off black near the root, but grows whiter and whiter out towards the tip. The coat was first spotted in 2007, and in 2019, it was brought to the attention of a group of cat experts lead by feline geneticist Heidi Anderson.

Since then, the group has been trying to figure out exactly what causes this shade to express itself, and recently, they finally figured it out. A paper on the discovery has been published in the journal Animal Genetics.

[–] cyborganism@piefed.ca 11 points 10 hours ago

salty liquorice

Tell me the researchers are Finnish without telling me they are Finnish.

[–] johnny_deadeyes@piefed.social 5 points 9 hours ago

Heck of a name. Sounds more of a cat flavor.

[–] EvilBit@lemmy.world 8 points 11 hours ago

Cat science is best science.

[–] iamanurd@midwest.social 6 points 11 hours ago

Want.

[–] taiyang@lemmy.world 6 points 6 hours ago

Darn, I was hoping for Vantacat.

[–] Una@piefed.europe.pub 4 points 10 hours ago

meow meow :)