• CFA lists the Siamese in four point colors, seal, chocolate, blue and lilac, and registers tabby pointed cats of the same type as Colorpoint Shorthairs.
  • CFA records that English breeders developed tabby points and that the name was changed to lynx point when the cats crossed the Atlantic; the Colorpoint Shorthair is judged in three color classes, one of which is lynx point.
  • CFA states that the point color is temperature sensitive, sitting on the cooler parts of the body while the warmer torso stays substantially lighter, and that it can darken with age or in a cold environment.
  • The molecular cause is a tyrosinase mutation. The Siamese phenotype was traced to an exon 2 G to A transition changing glycine to arginine at position 302, and the less temperature sensitive Burmese phenotype to an exon 1 change at position 227.
  • Lynx points wear the tabby markings anywhere pigment is expressed, which is why the ears carry a paler thumbprint and the eyes look outlined in CFA's descriptions of the lynx point colors.

What to look at

  1. Confirm the cat is pointed at all: darker ears, mask, legs, feet and tail against a substantially lighter body.
  2. Look at the legs and tail for bars. Solid points make a lynx point impossible; distinct bars separated by a lighter background color are what CFA's lynx point descriptions require.
  3. Look at the ears from behind. CFA describes a paler thumbprint in the center of the ear in the lynx point colors, which solid points do not have.
  4. Look at the face. The tabby markings around the eyes are what CFA describes as making lynx pointed cats appear to have eyeliner.
  5. Check the eye color. The Colorpoint Shorthair standard requires vivid blue with no other shades or colors allowed, and disqualifies eyes other than blue.
  6. Check the body for ghost striping or ticking, which CFA explicitly allows as body shading in the lynx point colors.

Why the points are only on the cool parts

Pointing is temperature sensitive albinism. The causative mutation was identified in Animal Genetics in 2005, which analyzed over 200 cats across 12 breeds and randomly bred cats and found the Siamese phenotype associated with an exon 2 transition in tyrosinase changing glycine to arginine at position 302. The Burmese phenotype came from a separate exon 1 change at position 227 and is less temperature sensitive, producing more pigment through the torso. The practical consequence is the one CFA describes: pigment forms where the cat is coolest, so ears, mask, feet and tail darken while the warm torso stays pale, and the coat can deepen with age or in a cold house.

The naming problem, and who recognizes what

Lynx point Siamese is a widely used phrase that CFA's own registry does not use. CFA lists the Siamese in four point colors only: seal, chocolate, blue and lilac, recognized in that order across the twentieth century, with blue point accepted in 1934, chocolate in 1952 and lilac in 1955. When breeders added the red gene in the 1950s the resulting cats became a separate breed, the Colorpoint Shorthair, structurally identical to the Siamese and today registered in 16 colors across three color classes. English tabby points crossed the Atlantic and were renamed lynx points, and that is the class they sit in. Registries differ on this, so the phrase describes a coat accurately while describing a CFA breed inaccurately.

What a photo can and cannot tell you

A photo reads pointing well. The contrast between body and points, the bars on the legs and tail, the paler thumbprint on the ear and the tabby markings around the eyes all show in daylight, and blue eyes are unmistakable. What a photo cannot settle is which registry, if any, holds a record for the cat, and here that matters more than usual: the visible coat may be a textbook lynx point while the breed name depends entirely on the paperwork. It also cannot distinguish a lynx point from a solid point whose ghost markings are bleeding through, which the 2021 Animal Genetics work notes can happen in cats carrying the tyrosinase variants as they age.

Related guides

Sources