They’ve got stripes! They’ve got spots! They’ve got Ms on their heads! They are smart, capable, resilient, adaptable and the most ubiquitous mogs on the planet.  

So why have TABBY CATS had to wait so long to get an Appreciation Day all to themselves?  You may well ask. 

National Tabby Day (some pedants call it National Tabby Cat Day, but whatever) is celebrated on 30 April every year, but was only set up in 2016. As tabbies have been around since ancient Egyptian times, this seems almost disrespectful.

Actually,I suspect that no tabby cares whether or not humans have made them a Special Day. They know they’re special. You do not have M (for Me?) on your forehead if you’re not already replete with confidence and self-respect (More about the Ms later).   

Tabby is not a breed but a coat pattern - and a state of mind. They can be any colour from orange to black and all the variations in between; they can be long hairs or short hairs; they can be almost any breed. The pattern combines easily with other options. Consider the tuxedo tabby, the kind of cool dude who matches a dress shirt with beachwear. The most maximalist of felines must be the ‘torbie’ whose coat is both tortoiseshell AND tabby.(More is more. Another reason to have M on your forehead). Belvedere considers this extravagance unsubtle. 

The point isn’t the colour, it’s the razzle-dazzle DPM that matters, Almost all feral cats are tabbies; it’s the factory setting for obligate carnivores as it offers great camouflage for hunting. Technically. tigers are tabbies, but I wouldn’t want to be the one to tell them.

That maybe because the name tabby has somehow become a bit pejorative and associated with fussy old females. This is a shame because tabbies got their name from something far more exotic. Al-‘Attābiyya was the textile industry quarter of late medieval Baghdad, where gorgeous striped and watermarked silk was made. It looked rather like the swirls and stripes on cat’s fur. Al-‘Attābiyya was a bit of a mouthful for French merchants who shortened it to ‘atabis’, and from there it became tabby, and a rather brilliant shorthand to describe a complex pattern. Isn’t that a lot more upmarket? If I were a tabby, I would demand a rebrand.

All tabbies have M on the forehead. All manner of myths and legends have been spun to explain this. (There is a probably genetic reason but that is a bit dull.) 

In the Christian tradition, the M was put there for Mary, as a reward from God after an anonymous stable tabby had snuggled into the manger and kept the infant Jesus warm and comforted the new mother.

In Islam, M is the mark left by Mohammed when he stroked his favourite cat Muezza  in gratitude. Muezza had saved the Prophet by pouncing on and despatching a poisonous snake before it could bite him.  

As tabbies are at home in every culture, there are no doubt more intriguing explanations. Belvedere has a few of his own. 

Belvedere Theory I  Alien Invasion

Maybe cats are after all an alien species whose mission is to take over the Earth very slowly and by non-violent means The Ms are there so that they can recognise each other; like wearing the Starfleet insignia to show what side you are on. 

Belvedere Theory 2 Nominative Determinism 

All tabbies have their own names that humans don’t know. These names all begin with M. So while tabbies tolerate being called Fluffbeans or Doris or Greebo or Keith by the humans they live with, they signal their actual names to each other by the very subtle differences in the Ms on their forehead undetectable to the human eye.

Belvedere Theory 3 Claw Runner   

Tabbies are sophisticated feline replicants made by the mysterious MoGI Corporation and M is the trademark, hidden in plain sight.

I think I should hide the catnip for a bit.

Who knows. Maybe they all belong to the same Masonic lodge.  

FYI The first National Tabby Day was launched in Manhattan as a joint effort, by the Mayor’s Alliance for NYC Animals, the Bideawee Animal Shelter (a venerable establishment, the oldest animal shelter in the US) and Triumph Books, publisher of  Making the Most of All Nine Lives: The Extraordinary Life of Buffy the Cat by Sandy Robins. 

Instant info gathered together for your convenience.

Patterns can be classic single, or mix and match. No tabby is exactly the same as any other, not even littermates.

 

For more stats and data on all cats, see The Infographic Cat  from Clowder Essential.