Maine Coon Tabby Patterns: Classic, Mackerel, Ticked and Spotted

Lucy Appel

Understanding Tabby Patterns in Maine Coons: A Complete Guide to Coat Types and Genetics

Tabby is one of the most common patterns in Maine Coons. Every tabby has the “M” on the forehead, but the body pattern takes one of four forms: classic, mackerel, ticked or spotted. This guide explains how to tell them apart, which genes produce each one, how color combines with pattern, and which patterns the breed standards accept.

The four tabby patterns

Tabby patterns in Maine Coons fall into four types: classic, mackerel, ticked and spotted. They differ in how the dark markings are laid out: broad swirls, narrow stripes, banding on individual hairs, or spots. The table below compares them.

Pattern Type	Defining Markings	Typical Appearance
Classic Tabby	Broad swirls, bull’s-eye on flank	Rounded, marble-like patches on body and sides
Mackerel Tabby	Narrow vertical stripes	Tiger-like parallel lines running from spine to belly
Ticked Tabby	Speckled hairs, minimal body stripes	Salt-and-pepper effect with facial and leg accents
Spotted Tabby	Discrete spots or broken stripes	Randomly distributed dots across the coat

How to tell the four patterns apart

Look at the sides of the body in good light, with the cat standing or lying on its side:

Classic: a round swirl or bull’s-eye on each flank and a butterfly shape across the shoulders.
Mackerel: narrow, evenly spaced stripes running down the sides from a line along the spine.
Ticked: almost no pattern on the sides. The coat looks evenly speckled, with bars left on the legs, tail and face.
Spotted: the stripes on the sides are broken into separate spots.

Spots on the belly alone do not make a cat a spotted tabby. Classic and mackerel tabbies often have spotted bellies, and ticked tabbies can too; a spotted tabby has its spots on the sides.

On a Maine Coon the pattern is easiest to read where the coat is short, on the shoulders and just behind them. The long coat on the belly and britches stretches and blurs the markings.

Classic tabby

Classic tabby Maine Coons have broad swirls that form a bull’s-eye on each flank, with a butterfly shape across the shoulders. The pattern comes from the Taqpep gene: a cat with two copies of the non-working (blotched) version of Taqpep is a classic tabby. A brown classic tabby, for example, shows black swirls on a warm brown background.

Mackerel tabby

Mackerel tabby Maine Coons have narrow, parallel stripes running down the sides from a dark line along the spine, like a fish skeleton. Mackerel is the working, dominant version of Taqpep, so one copy is enough to produce stripes instead of swirls. A black silver mackerel tabby shows black stripes on a silver-white background.

Ticked tabby

Ticked tabbies have almost no stripes or swirls on the body. Each hair is banded with light and dark color, which gives an even, speckled coat, while the face, legs and tail can keep some barring. Ticking is caused by a variant of the Dkk4 gene (Kaelin, McGowan and Barsh, 2021). One copy reduces the body pattern, two copies remove nearly all of it, and in both cases it hides whatever classic or mackerel pattern the cat carries underneath.

Spotted tabby

Spotted tabbies have stripes broken into spots along the sides, usually over a mackerel or classic base. The genes that break the stripes into spots have not yet been identified. Spotted is uncommon in Maine Coons; TICA’s Maine Coon standard accepts it.

Why most Bellspurr tabbies are ticked

The Bellspurr breeding program is working toward shaded and high smoke cats, which means breeding away from visible tabby markings. Of the four tabby patterns, ticked is the closest to having no markings on the body: the pattern is reduced to banding on each hair, with bars left only on the legs, tail and face. That is why most of the tabbies at Bellspurr are ticked.

TICA’s Maine Coon standard points the same way: it penalizes shaded cats that show tabby markings on the body. How shaded and smoke differ from silver tabbies is explained in Silver, Shaded and Smoke Maine Coons.

The “M” on the forehead

The “M” on the forehead is part of every tabby pattern: classic, mackerel, ticked and spotted. It is a tabby trait, not a Maine Coon trait, so tabbies of every breed have it. On ticked tabbies it can be fainter, but it is still there.

The genetics behind the patterns

Three genes decide what a tabby looks like. The agouti gene decides whether the pattern shows at all: a cat needs at least one working copy (A); a cat with two non-agouti copies (aa) is solid, and its pattern stays hidden apart from faint “ghost” markings, often visible in kittens. Taqpep decides mackerel or classic. Dkk4 decides whether the pattern is ticked. Red and cream cats are the exception to the agouti rule: the orange gene lets their tabby markings show even when they are non-agouti, which is why red cats almost always look tabby.

Which version of each gene wins

Mackerel (Mc) is dominant over classic (mc), so a cat needs two classic copies to be a classic tabby. Ticked is dominant over both and masks them: a ticked cat can still carry mackerel or classic and pass it on. The genes behind spotting have not been identified.

What kittens inherit from their parents

Pattern genes follow simple Mendelian rules. Two classic tabbies can only pass on classic. A mackerel tabby that carries classic, bred to a classic tabby, gives on average half mackerel and half classic kittens. A ticked kitten needs at least one ticked parent, because ticked is dominant. The pattern is visible at birth, so a breeder can tell each kitten’s pattern within the first days.

Color and pattern combinations

Pattern and color are inherited separately, so any pattern can come in any color. The table shows a few examples and the genes behind them.

Color Variant	Pattern Type	Genetic Basis	Visual Effect
Brown Classic	Classic Tabby	Agouti (A), two classic copies (mc/mc)	Black swirls on a warm brown ground
Silver Mackerel	Mackerel Tabby	Agouti, silver inhibitor (I), mackerel (Mc)	Black stripes on a silver-white ground
Blue Ticked	Ticked Tabby	Agouti, two dilute copies (d/d), ticked (Dkk4)	Blue-grey banded hairs, few body markings
Red Spotted	Spotted Tabby	Orange (O); spotting genes not yet identified	Dark red spots on a lighter red ground
Torbie Classic	Classic Tabby	Female carrying both orange and non-orange, agouti, mc/mc	Intermingled red and black marble patterns

Every pattern comes in every tabby color the breed allows: brown (black), red, blue, cream and their silver versions. A few things change how color and pattern look together:

Brown and silver: a brown tabby has black markings on a warm background. The silver inhibitor gene removes the warm pigment from the base of each hair, so the same markings sit on a silver-white background (black silver tabby).
Dilute: the dilute gene turns black to blue and red to cream, which softens the contrast between markings and background.
Red and cream: these cats always show tabby markings, even when they are genetically solid.
Torbies: females can carry both red and non-red, giving patches of red and black (or cream and blue), each with tabby markings.
Ticked: color shows as bands on each hair rather than as stripes, so a ticked cat looks evenly colored from a distance.

Which tabby patterns TICA accepts

Pattern alone cannot tell you whether a cat is a Maine Coon: many breeds and household cats are tabbies. A cat’s breed is documented by its pedigree registration. Bellspurr registers with TICA, whose Maine Coon standard accepts classic, mackerel, ticked and spotted tabby, as well as shaded and chinchilla. The same standard penalizes shaded cats that show tabby markings on the body and silvers with heavy tarnishing.

Clear, blurry and ghost markings

Two cats with the same pattern genes can look very different. How crisp the markings look depends on:

Coat length. The Maine Coon coat is short on the shoulders and long on the belly and britches, so markings are sharp on the shoulders and soft and stretched where the coat is long.
Contrast. Dilute colors lower the contrast between markings and background; silver raises it.
Inheritance. Crisp or muddy markings tend to run in lines, but no single gene for clarity has been identified.

Ghost markings are faint tabby markings on a cat that is genetically solid or smoke (non-agouti). They are common in kittens and usually fade as the adult coat comes in. Red and cream cats are the exception: the orange gene lets their tabby pattern show regardless, so a solid red still looks tabby.

How the pattern changes from kitten to adult

The pattern is set before birth, so newborns already show it, and stripes or swirls are often clearest in the first days on the damp newborn coat. As the fluffy kitten coat grows in, it softens the contrast, so a kitten can look less marked for a while. From about three months the adult coat starts to replace the kitten coat and the pattern sharpens again, reaching its full depth and contrast at around six to nine months, when the coat is dense.

Ticked kittens often show more barring on the body than they will as adults; the bars on the legs and tail stay, while the body clears as the ticked adult coat comes in.

Questions people ask

What is a black silver tabby?

A black (brown) tabby that also carries the dominant silver inhibitor gene. The inhibitor removes the warm pigment from the base of each hair, so the background turns silver-white while the tabby markings stay black. The pattern underneath can be classic, mackerel, ticked or spotted. How a black silver tabby differs from a shaded or a smoke is covered in Silver, Shaded and Smoke Maine Coons.

What is a black silver ticked tabby?

A ticked tabby with the silver inhibitor gene. Each hair is banded black and silver-white, the body has little or no pattern, and the barring that remains sits on the face, legs and tail. Bonnie, a ticked silver tabby at Bellspurr, is one.

Is there such a thing as a smoke tabby?

Not genetically. A smoke is a non-agouti cat (aa) with the silver inhibitor gene: the tip of each hair is solid colored and the base is silver-white, and the non-agouti genes hide the tabby pattern. Smoke kittens, and some adults, can still show faint “ghost” tabby markings, which is why the phrase “smoke tabby” is used. A cat with a clear tabby pattern on a silver undercoat is a silver tabby, not a smoke.

Does a shaded Maine Coon have tabby markings?

No. A shaded Maine Coon has no tabby pattern on the body. Genetically it is still an agouti tabby, but the silver inhibitor gene and a wide silver band at the base of each hair reduce the pattern to darker tips, so a correct shaded may show a few darker spots here and there, never a pattern. A cat with a visible classic, mackerel, ticked or spotted pattern on a silver undercoat is a silver tabby, not a shaded. TICA’s Maine Coon standard penalizes shaded cats that show tabby markings on the body.

Can a solid or smoke cat carry a tabby pattern?

Yes. A non-agouti (aa) cat hides its pattern but still carries the Taqpep genes for mackerel or classic, and the Dkk4 gene for ticked if present, and passes them on. Bred to an agouti cat, it can produce tabby kittens whose pattern you could not predict from looking at the solid or smoke parent.

Sources

Kaelin CB, McGowan KA, Barsh GS. Developmental genetics of color pattern establishment in cats. Nature Communications, 2021. nature.com
Kaelin CB et al. Specifying and sustaining pigmentation patterns in domestic and wild cats. Science, 2012.
TICA Maine Coon breed standard (2025). tica.org
Messybeast: Inhibitor gene – silver and gold, smoke, shaded and tipped cats. messybeast.com