The cat world just got a little more colorful. The story started In a small Finnish village called Petäjävesi. Sharp-eyed locals began noticing peculiar black cats with coats that didn’t look quite right. Their fur seemed dipped in shadows at the root and dusted with snow at the tip. Not solid black, not tuxedo, not tabby. Something else.
Scientists now have a name for these cats: salmiak cats, after Finland’s beloved (and famously polarizing) salty licorice candy. They have a genetic signature never seen before in felines that makes each hair fade from dark to light. And in doing so, they’ve opened a new chapter in our understanding of cat genetics.
What Exactly Is a Salmiak Cat?
Cats typically come in two colors: black and orange. I know what you’re thinking: I’ve seen all sorts of shades of gray and other colors; well, that’s most likely some color emerging from these two colors combining or fading. But Salmiak cats are different.
Their backs shimmer with black hairs that fade to white at the tips, creating a frosted, smoky look. Their tails often end in white. And their bellies and paws stay clean and pale, like a classic tuxedo, but the rest looks sprinkled with ash.
The pattern shows up in black cats most dramatically, but researchers have found it in blues, browns, and tortoiseshells as well. And the coat doesn’t change with age. A salmiak kitten will grow up looking like the same marbled confection it was at birth.
When villagers first spotted them in 2007, they suspected something was weird. Were they infertile, or sick? Nobody knew. What people did know was that these cats looked unlike any others in the country. They managed to convince researchers to come and investigate.
These Cats Ditched a Part of Their DNA
To crack the mystery, a team led by Heidi Anderson and Hannes Lohi at the University of Helsinki began with the obvious suspects. Most cat coats are sculpted by variations of a single gene called KIT, which controls pigment cells. Different versions of KIT explain tuxedo markings, full white coats, and even the dainty “gloves” of Birman cats. Other unusual coats, like the werewolf-like Lykoi, come from entirely different genes.
But when the researchers tested four salmiak cats for the usual KIT mutations, nothing showed up. They had no trace of the retroviral insertions or tiny deletions that explain spotting in other cats. It was as if their unusual coats came from nothing at all.
So the scientists did what geneticists do when they’re stumped: they sequenced the cats’ entire genomes. Then, they found it.
A whopping 95,000 base-pair chunk of DNA simply missing downstream of the KIT gene. In cat DNA, that’s like a missing paragraph in a very important instruction manual. Without it, pigment cells start fading out as the hairs grow, producing the dark-to-light ombré pattern that defines salmiak cats.
They called the mutation w-sal. And it turns out to be recessive: cats need to inherit two copies, one from each parent, to show the trait. That explains why salmiak cats are so rare. In the researchers’ sample of 183 cats, only five had the full salmiak coat. Three more carried just one copy, invisible in their fur but tucked into their DNA.
They named these cats salmiak. Salmiak candy is salty licorice flavored with ammonium chloride. It’s beloved in Finland and other Nordic countries, and despised by many outsiders. It’s bitter, bracing, unforgettable. Fazer, Finland’s confectionery giant, has sold cat-shaped salty licorice since the 1950s. So, when locals saw these unusual cats in the 2000s, the leap in naming was obvious. Here was a living, purring version of a cultural icon.
Are The Cats Okay?
The Finnish team specifically looked for warning signs. Many other coat-color mutations, especially those involving the KIT gene, can come with baggage. White cats, for instance, are prone to deafness if their whiteness stems from certain genetic variants. Some people even speculated that salmiak cats might be infertile, since the pattern stayed rare in their village for years.
The study showed none of that. Salmiak cats looked as healthy as can be. One salmiak mother cat successfully gave birth to four healthy kittens. Owners and veterinarians reported no hearing problems, though formal hearing tests would be needed to confirm this fully.
Yet, discoveries like this carry risks. A new, striking coat pattern can become a magnet for breeders chasing profit. We’ve seen it before: once-rare traits become fashionable, then overbred, sometimes to the point of harming animal welfare. The Scottish Fold’s cute folded ears, for example, come with painful cartilage defects. The munchkin cat’s stubby legs stem from a mutation tied to skeletal problems.
So far, salmiak cats are not recognized as a breed. They are simply domestic cats with a rare recessive variant. Animal welfare groups in Finland stress that this should remain the case. These cats are rare and beautiful, yes — but they’re not accessories, and they shouldn’t become the next boutique fad.
The salmiak cat isn’t a new species, nor is it a new breed. But is a reminder. Evolution and genetics are ongoing stories, still unfolding in our backyards. And beyond genetics, there’s a story about people and animals. The salmiak cat emerged from stray populations in one Finnish village. Locals noticed, cared, and eventually contributed DNA samples to researchers. Without that community curiosity, the discovery might never have happened.
The study was published in the journal Animal Genettics.
