Study
Specifying and sustaining pigmentation patterns in domestic and wild cats
Kaelin, C. B.; Xu, X.; Hong, L. Z.; David, V. A.; McGowan, K. A.; Schmidt-Küntzel, A.; Roelke, M. E.; Pino, J.; Pontius, J.; Cooper, G. M.; Manuel, H.; Swanson, W. F.; Marker, L.; Harper, C. K.; van Dyk, A.; Yue, B.; Mullikin, J. C.; Warren, W. C.; Eizirik, E.; Kos, L.; O'Brien, S. J.; Barsh, G. S.; Menotti-Raymond, M.
Science, 2012
Genetic mapping in domestic cats with different tabby patterns, followed by expression work on skin. The same gene was then tested in king cheetahs, whose spots run together into blotches and stripes, to see whether the mechanism generalised beyond the domestic animal.
- Studied in
- Felis catus, Acinonyx jubatus
- Sample size
- domestic cats and cheetahs genotyped and sampled histologically
A single gene, Taqpep, controls whether a cat carries narrow stripes or wide blotches, and the same gene explains the king cheetah. Crucially, the pattern is specified in the skin before it is expressed in the hair: a pre-pattern of gene expression marks out where the dark regions will be, and pigment-producing cells in the hair follicles then read that map.
What it means
The authors' reading, and ours. Where they differ, that difference is the point.
How the authors put it
Colour markings in cats arise in two stages — a periodic pre-pattern established in the skin, and its later interpretation by follicular melanocytes — a mechanism conserved across the cat family.
How NatureHQ reads it
This is the paper that makes the tiger-stripe question answerable, and it is almost never the one cited. The pattern is genuinely a property of the skin, established there first. What the skin does not do is deposit visible dark pigment into the dermis: it tells the follicles which colour of hair to grow. Those two statements get compressed into "tigers have striped skin", which is close enough to be memorable and wrong in the part that matters.
- The mapping was done in domestic cats and cheetahs, not tigers; the mechanism is inferred to be shared across felids rather than demonstrated in Panthera tigris.
- Explains stripe geometry and its variants, not the orange-and-black colour choice.
- Says nothing about whether a shaved tiger looks striped, which is a question about visible pigment rather than about pattern.
What this study is used for on NatureHQ
One study can inform several subjects. Here is everywhere this one is cited.
Published by: American Association for the Advancement of SciencePublished in Science or Science Advances (AAAS).
doi.org/10.1126/science.1220893
This reference was resolved automatically against Crossref on 2026-08-11.
NatureHQ summarises research in its own words and does not reproduce published text. Reviewed 2026-08-11.