Black smoke Maine Coon Richie with a black face and diamond eyes

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Black smoke Maine Coon Richie with a black face and diamond eyes
Black smoke Maine Coon Richie with a black face and diamond eyes. Photo: Instagram.

OMG, this is a Maine Coon with an amazing face. His full name is "Richie du Mont d’Even". I think he has a black smoke coat which has created this black face with the assistance of other genes (polygenetic influence?) and ears with piercing, diamond eyes. This is a very special cat.

Richie looked very interesting but relatively plain as a kitten
Richie looked very interesting but relatively plain as a kitten. Image: Instagram.

His paws are balls of fluff. He has a mane that goes over his head like a halo. He's angelic and other-worldly. The lynx tips on the end of his ears are smoky grey which makes them stand out. They are a bit like the opposite to the black lynx tips of the wild caracal. 

He lives in France with his human: Adriana Piraino. He was born on 7th November 2020. He is still very young. They say Maine Coons reach adulthood at around the age of 4. He is going to be enormous as well.

Richie with Adriana
Richie with Adriana. Photo: Instagram

Richie was bred by a French cattery called Chatterie du Mont d’Even. I guess they were surprised and delighted at their kitten and even more so when he grew up and looked stunning. At about 12-months-of-age he weighed around 20 pounds which is big even for typical Maine Coons. He has all the attributes of a star performer on social media where he has the usual accounts including more than 140k followers on Instagram, the source of the photos.


ASSOCIATED: Black Smoke Maine Coon Cat

Here is the video. You might have to click on the play button twice to get it to work. Sorry.



Note: The video above is from Instagram. Sometimes they are deleted at source which stops them working on this site. If that has happened, I apologise but I have no control over it. The reason why I have the original video also on this page is to ensure that one of them works in the future!!

Some basic genetics about the smoke coat 

The smoke coat is formed by the combination of the inhibitor gene with non-agouti. Sarah Hartwell, a cat genetics expert, says that the inhibitor gene is the "silver-restriction" gene. It allows pigment at the tip of the hair but restricts the amount of pigment which is laid down in the hair shaft; so, for a silver series smoke the shaft is white/ivory. This applies to Ritchie above. 

The tipping colour, that is the colour at the end of the hair strand, is called the top-colour. The pale colour of the hair shaft is known as the under-colour. When the contrast between these two colours is strong as in for black cats, the coat is very striking. This kind of shading and silver also occurs in red and creamc-oloured coats. They are referred to as cameos, sometimes.

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