what breed is a tuxedo cat

This one I can answer with authority, because I am wearing the suit as I write. A tuxedo cat is not a breed. It is a colour pattern, black and white arranged so the cat appears to be dressed for a formal occasion. A tuxedo can be any breed, or none, and most are splendid moggies. Here is what the tuxedo really is.

A tuxedo cat is simply a cat with a particular black-and-white pattern: a mostly black coat with white on the chest and belly, often the paws, and sometimes the chin and face, arranged so it looks as though the cat is wearing a dinner jacket with a crisp white shirt beneath. The name describes the outfit, not the animal underneath, and that outfit can appear on a pedigree cat of several breeds or, far more often, on an ordinary domestic cat of no particular breed at all.

where the tuxedo comes from

The tuxedo look is created by what is called the white spotting gene, which controls how much white appears on a cat and where. A little white spotting gives you a black cat with a white chest and socks; more of it produces the full tuxedo; more still gives you a cat that is mostly white with black patches. The tuxedo sits at a particular point on that scale, and because the white spotting gene turns up across the whole cat population, the tuxedo pattern appears everywhere, in many breeds and in countless moggies. It is a common, classic look precisely because it is not tied to a breed.

so what breed is your tuxedo cat

If your tuxedo came with breed papers, its breed is whatever the papers say, and the black-and-white suit is just its markings. Bicolour patterns like the tuxedo are recognised in a number of pedigree breeds. But the great majority of tuxedo cats are domestic shorthairs or domestic longhairs, the proper name for a cat of mixed or unknown ancestry, which is to say a wonderful, ordinary moggy that happens to have dressed for dinner. There is nothing lesser about that. Some of the most distinguished cats in history and fiction, and one very opinionated columnist, have worn the tuxedo without a breed to their name.

As with every coat pattern, the tuxedo tells you nothing about temperament. There is no evidence that tuxedo cats share a personality, however much the internet insists they are all mischievous geniuses. Your tuxedo's character is its own, drawn from the individual cat rather than the suit.

If you truly want to know a cat's breed ancestry rather than admire its markings, a feline DNA test or a vet's assessment is the honest route. But for most tuxedos, the happy and accurate answer is that they are moggies of the highest distinction, formally dressed and entirely breed-free.

Related reading from my desk: what breed is a tabby cat, what breed is a calico cat, and the full cat breeds guide.

To identify a cat's actual breed ancestry rather than its coat pattern, a feline DNA test or a vet's assessment is the way. I am a cat with opinions, not a veterinarian.