Person meets rare looking feline with unique features, leaving cat community stumped about pawssible breed: 'I've never seen a cat this kind of color'

Blake Seidel • Managing Editor & Brand Manager

Feb 23, 2026 11:00 AM EST

It's a bird, it's a plane, it's a… miniature black tiger?

Unlike dogs, cats don't come in an alphabet of different breeds. Compared to the over 200+ dog breeds worldwide, the most any recognized feline organization acknowledges is 70 different cat breeds, but most households hold fewer than 10. You've got your puffy Persians, your tortoiseshell kitties with supreme tortittude, meowjestic Maine coons, hairless sphynx cats, your "standard issue cats" (tabbies), terrific tuxedo cats, and then you have your generic black cats and orange cats with one collective brain cell. Of course, there are others, but these are most likely the cats most people have.

However, the world of cats is much more than these select breeds. There are purrfectly rare and unique-looking cats all over the place, like the Lykoi, AKA the "werewolf cat", or the burnt orange abyssinian cats that look like they inspired pharaohs. Today, we have a cat that was found by a random passerby that, in all of our years as cat expurrts, we can't even begin to describe. It looks like a miniature black tiger, or a tabby with melanism.

Upon uploading this pawsitively beautiful kitty with a unique fur pattern, the cat community couldn't identify it either. Purrhaps it's a variation on a tabby, or maybe it is its own unique breed altogether, but we'll let you weigh in on it with your own opinions. Either way, it's one of the most beautiful cats we've ever seen, and if we had been the one to stumble across its path, you best believe we would have taken it home that same instant.

Subscribe to our weekly newsletter to start your Caturday with the funniest felines on the internet!

01

via Cats and BrainFuel
02

via Gullible_Pin5844
03

via Cats and BrainFuel
For a street cat, they look very well taken care of! They must be someone's cat that lives outside, which pains us to say, as we wish it were homeless so we could give it a home (our home). This reminds us to tell you, though, that you should always check to make sure an outdoor cat is really a stray. You can do this by taking the cat to a veterinarian to check for a ID chip, but you can also generally tell by the state of the cat's appearance. If they are clean, well-groomed, and look fed, then most likely they are someone's outdoor pet.
04

via Ok-Percentage-9953
05

via Cats and BrainFuel
06

via UrbanMystic0
07

via Cats and BrainFuel
08

via Plus-Wrangler-8374
09

via Cats and BrainFuel
10

via NEOFELIS21
11

via Ela Myzan
12

via unusual_cee
13

via Ela Myzan
We've been around a lot of cats. Since we were kids we had cats in our homes, and we've been working at I Can Has Cheezburger for long enough to say that we've probably seen more cats in our time here than most people do in their entire lifetimes. And still, we've never seen a cat that looks like this. Not once.
14

via KeypadLesson
15

via Ela Myzan
16

via Economy_Cupcake_906
17

via SugarlessGlow
18

via Ela Myzan
19

via UrbanMystico
20

via Bonnie

Want More? Follow Us and Add Us as a Preferred Source on Google.

Person meets rare looking feline with unique features, leaving cat community stumped about pawssible breed: 'I've never seen a cat this kind of color'

It's a bird, it's a plane, it's a… miniature black tiger?

Tags

Handpicked for You

{{title}}

Handpicked for You

{{title}}