The hair characteristics of Turkish Angora and Van cats

Abstract

The primary aim of this study was to determine the hair characteristics of Turkish Angora and Van cats, and also to see if there were seasonal, sex, age, or eye color effects on the traits measured. A total of 41 cats, 26 Turkish Angora and 15 Turkish Van, were used. The ages of the cats ranged from 1 to 8 years old. Analyzed traits included fiber diameter (FD), fiber lengths of hauteur (H) and barbe (B), fiber tenacity (T), and elongation (EL). Terms included in the statistical models were breed, season, sex, age, and eye colors of the cats and 2-way interactions that had P-values of less than 0.2 among the main effects. The difference in the FD of the Turkish Angora (23.5 mu m) and Van (25.6 mu m) cats was not significant (P = 0.0579). The H (27.5 versus 20.1 mm), B (33.1 versus 23.4 mm), and EL (33.8% versus 24.0%) values were all greater (P < 0.0001) for the Turkish Angora cats, while only the T value (12.1 versus 7.6 g/den) was greater (P = 0.0001) for the Turkish Van cats. Significant phenotypic correlations were found between FD and T (0.36, P = 0.0191), between H and B (0.98, P < 0.0001), between H and T (-0.58, P < 0.0001), between H and EL (0.31, P = 0.0480), between B and T (-0.56, P = 0.0001), and between B and EL (0.34, P = 0.0315). The present study defines the hair characteristics of the Turkish Angora and Van cats. These results may help to understand the phenotypes of these cats better and could also be a source for further studies.