Lets start with saying savannah cats and bengal cats should NOT have ticked coats. Some breeds of cats such as pixi bobs and Abyssinian have been used in bengal cats and savannah cat blood lines so ticked coats can crop up. A ticked coat is different from a “fuzzy” stage that occur during the kitten stage. The “fuzzy” coat may make a kitten looked ticked to a kitten buyer who does not know better.
The ticked fur pattern on cats is fairly common among feral population of cats and several wild cat species. There is a gene which masks any other tabby pattern making it ticked. To the best of my knowledge this is a recessive gene. You will see ticked coat patten on Abyssinian, chausie and Somali cats. Also ticked coats crop up in savannah cats and bengal cats sometimes. Most ticked cats have no striping except for thin stripes on the legs, face and tail. Rather than showing the strips only the agouti pattern can be seen giving a ticked coat effect. The Abyssinian breed was also known as the Ethiopian and the Algerian and was believed to trace back to the Egyptian Middle Kingdom. Its agouti fur resembles that of the African wildcat, an ancestor of modern cats. The first documented “Abyssinian” was “Zula”, brought back from Abyssinia (Ethiopia) in 1868. Ticked cats occurred naturally in Britain and the Abyssinian breed might have been selectively bred from these. The rabbit like agouti coloring led to early ticked cats being called Bunny Cat, Hare Cat, Rabbit Cat or Cunny (the latter somewhat naively – this being the slang term for female genitalia!). The most popular was known as the British Ticked and perhaps deserves to be recreated as a variety of British Shorthair
Ticked Fur on Chausie Cats
Ticked fur on a F2 savannah cat. Father was an F5 bengal male. Notice the ticked ear tips.