Why are tigers and lions not varied like domestic cats?

Domestic cats come in so many varieties and different colours and patterns. How did this come to be? And why is it that tigers and other wild species of cats don't show the same diversity in their markings and general appearance?

Why are tigers and lions not varied like domestic cats?
Big white fluffy tigers wouldn't be all that good at sneaking up on their prey, so that particular allele wouldn't survive for very long.


Humans deliberately encourage the expression of different coat colours, which is why they are so numerous,
Reply:Actually, there are variants in large cats. Jaguars, for instance, exist in three color phases: yellow with black rosettes, black (with slightly darker rosettes), and a washed-out gray. Most individuals are yellow, a minority are black, and the gray ("ghost jaguars") are extremely rare.





This is because yellow with spots is the best color for hunting. In very dark forests black jaguars also do well. The gray mutation is common enough to occur, and some animals live with it, but it is not very good.





Now imagine that you domesticated jaguars. With food every day all three color phases would do fine. What's more, people would be more interested in the unusual colors than the normal ones, and so they would breed the unusual colors more, and you'd end up with a mix of colors in the population.





Add to that crossing between color phases to try and produce mixed individuals (which mostly doesn't work) and you would eventually have many color of jaguar.
Reply:Domestic cats are one feline species that shows a huge varity in form and coloration. Tigers, Lions, and other species of feline are far more uniform. Why is this? The simplest answer is, Nature has much higher standards than Humans do. Wild animals are shaped by the environments they live in, this is a basic tenant of Evolution by Natural Selection. A lion with a tawny coat is hard to see in tall grass, so it can sneak up on prey and catch them. A lion with, say, a bright white coat, or a dark black coat, would be easy to spot and have far less success feeding itself, and thus, living long enough to have cubs. Traits that help them live are the traits that dominate their populations.





The rules are different for domestic animals. White cats who are fed and cared for by humans are at no more of a disadvantage than any other colored cat. Humans, through purposeful breeding, direct a sort of "man made evolution". Traits that make an animal interesting to look at but poor at surviving in the wild are okay, because the wild is no longer a factor, so you get much more variety. Also, humans can actively select traits to enhance with every generation of the animals being bred. In nature, what traits end up being expressed in generations down the line are subject to a much more complex situation that includes (but is not governed by) sheer luck.





A lot more can be said on the subject, but there's a glimpse that I hope answers your question.
Reply:There are different breeds of domestic cats because humans selectively bred for certain traits. Same exact thing with dogs...there are no wild chihuahuas or golden retrievers...if all breeds of dogs were left to mate with each other, after a few generations they would all start to look like each other.
Reply:Domestic cats have been selectively bred by humans. Any that show some form of mutation have been interbred to produce new varieties. They are all still the same species however.


Lions and tigers show less variation because they are a product of natural selection. Any mutations usually are detrimental to survival and are selected out of the population.
Reply:Domestic cats have one important factor, human intervention. Those breeds of cats come about by someone breeding X with Y. The tiger is a species, the lion is a species, they breed true. That means the reproduce with their own species.





Unfortunately people have interfered with the reproductive life's of these big cats. Sadly the motive was one of profit, not science.
Reply:The answers before mine are correct that cats relationships with humans have changed them but is also because unlike their predecessor's there are several genes responsible for the hair color identified. The combination of them gives different phenotypes


Features like hair length, lack of tail or presence of a very short tail (bobtail cat) are also determined by single alleles and modified by poly-genes. Coat patterns


Cat coat genetics can produce a variety of coat patterns. Some of the most common are:


Bicolor cat:


This pattern varies between the tuxedo cat which is mostly black with a white chest, and possibly markings on the face and paws/legs, all the way to the Van pattern, where the only colored parts of the cat are the tail (usually including the base of the tail proper), and the top of the head (often including the ears). There are several other terms for amounts of white between these two extremes, such as harlequin or jellicle cat. Bicolor cats can have as their primary (non-white) color black, red, any dilution thereof and also tortoiseshell (see below for definition).


Maltese cat :


The former name for a blue (grey) cat.


Tabby cat


Striped, with a variety of patterns. The classic "blotched" tabby (or "marbled") pattern is the most common and consists of butterflies and bullseyes. The "mackerel" or "striped" tabby is a series of vertical stripes down the cat's side (resembling the fish). This pattern broken into spots is referred to as a "spotted" tabby. Finally, the tabby markings may look like a series of ticks on the fur, thus the "ticked" tabby, which is almost exclusively associated with the Abyssinian breed of cats. The worldwide evolution of the cat means that certain types of tabby are associated with certain countries; for instance, blotched tabbies are quite rare outside NW Europe, where they are the most common type.


This cat is also known as a Calimanco cat or Clouded Tiger cat, and by the nickname "tortie". In the cat fancy, a tortoiseshell cat is randomly patched over with red (or its dilute form, cream) and black (or its dilute blue) mottled throughout the coat. Additionally, the cat may have white spots in its fur, which will make it a "tortoiseshell and white" cat or, if there is a significant amount of white in the fur and the red and black colors form a patchwork rather than a mottled aspect, the cat will be called a "calico". All calicos are tortoiseshell (as they carry both black and red), but not all tortoiseshells are calicos (which requires a significant amount of white in the fur and patching rather than mottling of the colors). The calico is also sometimes called a "tricolor cat".


The Japanese refer to this pattern as mi-ke (meaning "triple fur"), while the Dutch call these cats a lapjeskat (meaning "patches cat"). A true tricolor must consist of three colors: a reddish color, dark or light; white; and one other color, typically a brown, black or blue, as described by American breeder Barbara French, writing for the Cat Fanciers community. Both tortoiseshell and calico cats are typically female because the coat pattern is the result of differential X chromosome inactivation in females (which, as with all normal female mammals, have two X chromosomes). Those male tortoiseshells that are created are usually sterile; conversely, cats where the overall color is ginger (orange) are commonly male (roughly in a 3:1 ratio). In a litter sired by a ginger tom, the females will be tortoiseshell or ginger. See "Tortoiseshell and Tricolor Cats" for an extensive genetic explanation for tricolor cats, and detailing the possible combinations of coloring.


As to why is it that tigers and other wild species of cats don't show the same diversity in their markings and general appearance? It is because genetically they are perfect for their environments for their survival. However there are new combinations in some and again it is due to mankind, these animals have been taken from their natural environments to live and over a period of time they have evolved or adapted to survive where they were moved to much like any living thing on this awesome planet we adapt to survive.

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