Melanism, the original mutation

While the tabby’s camouflaging coat is the “default” pattern for Felis catus, the most common mutation is melanism, or blackness. You might say that a solid black cat is nature’s first variation on the tabby pattern, occurring without any human involvement in the breeding.

Melanism occurs not only among domestic cats but also among thirteen species of wild cats. Genetically, tabby is dominant over black, and as a result there are far more tabby cats than black ones in the world.