Guide · Updated July 2026

A Real-Life Pokedex for Cats: Build Your Cat-Dex From Actual Street Cats

Somewhere between the tabby who runs your block and the tortoiseshell who ignores you from a windowsill, an idea sneaks up on cat people: what if you could collect them? Not own them, not chase them, just keep a record of the ones you meet and try to spot every kind. That is a cat-dex, and it turns an ordinary walk into a quiet treasure hunt.

Quick note on the word: a Pokedex is Nintendo's in-game encyclopedia, nothing here is affiliated with Nintendo, and we borrow the term only as shorthand for a collection you slowly fill out. Your version is made of real cats.

What a "real-life Pokedex" actually means

The appeal is a simple loop that games have used for decades: go outside, find something, capture it, sort it, and feel the satisfaction of a set filling up. Pokemon GO proved millions of people would walk for that loop when it launched in 2016. Birdwatchers had been running the same loop, minus the phone, for a century.

Nature apps do it with real creatures. Seek by iNaturalist hands out badges and challenges for identifying real plants and animals, works without an account, and covers tens of thousands of species. iNaturalist, its serious sibling, has logged hundreds of millions of real observations. There is even an app called Snappit that bills itself as a real-life Pokedex for animals, plants, and bugs, complete with rarity tiers from common to legendary.

The gap those apps leave open is cats specifically. Snappit and Seek are about all of nature, and a neighborhood tabby is a rounding error to them. A cat-dex zooms all the way in on the one creature you actually stop for.

Why cat people want a cat-dex, not a breed scanner

Here is the part that most "identify your cat" tools skip. The overwhelming majority of cats you meet on the street are not any breed at all. Pedigreed cats are a small slice of the whole cat population, so a phone app confidently announcing "Maine Coon" over a random porch cat is usually just guessing.

Coat and pattern are different. They are visible, they are real, and you can call them fairly from a photo. An orange tabby is an orange tabby whether its parents came with papers or not. That is why a good cat-dex collects by coat type, not breed. It is the version of the game you can actually play honestly.

Cat "types" are coats and patterns, not species

All house cats are one species, so "type" here means the look of the coat. That look is built from a few stackable ingredients: a base color, whether there is a tabby pattern, how much white is splashed on, whether the color is diluted to a softer shade, and whether the cat is colorpoint. Mix those and you get a huge range of cats from a short list of rules.

A couple of ground truths worth knowing before you start labeling:

Tabby is a pattern, not a breed. Look for stripes, swirls, spots, or a fine salt-and-pepper ticking, plus the classic M on the forehead.
Calico and tortoiseshell are color arrangements, not breeds either. They describe how black-based and red-based colors are distributed, sometimes with white.

The starter cat-dex: coat badges to collect

Here is a practical starter set. It is sixteen buckets, enough to make every walk interesting without pretending a photo can read a cat's genome. Full cat genetics has far more combinations, so treat this as level one.

The solids

Black cat. All black, the eternal good-luck-or-bad-luck debate.
White cat. All white, often with striking eyes.
Gray or blue cat. A soft slate gray, which is genetically a diluted black.
Orange (red) cat. Ginger through and through, often faintly striped since solid orange is rare.

The tabbies

Mackerel tabby. Narrow vertical stripes like fish bones.
Classic tabby. Bold swirls and a bullseye on the flank.
Spotted tabby. Stripes broken into spots.
Ticked tabby. Almost no stripes, just flecked, sandy-looking fur, like an Abyssinian.

The two-tone and three-tone cats

Tuxedo. Black with a white chest and paws, dressed for a wedding.
Cow or harlequin cat. Mostly white with bold black patches.
Van. White with color only on the head and tail.
Calico. Clear patches of black-based color, red-based color, and white, all three.
Tortoiseshell (tortie). Black-based and red-based color marbled together, little to no white.
Torbie. A tortie with tabby striping showing through the marble.

The special looks

Colorpoint. Pale body with darker face, ears, paws, and tail, the classic Siamese pattern, produced by temperature-sensitive pigment.
Longhair fluff. Any of the above, but make it floof.

Get all sixteen and your neighborhood cat-dex is full. The rare-genetics stuff, chocolate versus black, blue versus lilac, smoke versus shaded, is a real rabbit hole, but it is not something to call confidently from a passing photo. Keep those in the "maybe" pile.

How to catch cats kindly with a camera

The catching is done with a lens, not your hands, and that is the whole ethic of it. A few rules keep it fun and fair:

Keep a respectful distance and let the cat decide how close it wants to get.
Never chase, corner, or pick up a cat you do not know. Startled cats bite and scratch, and feral cats genuinely do not want to be handled.
Do not trespass or reach into yards for a shot. No cat is worth a fence.
Read the ears. A neatly tipped ear is the mark of a trap-neuter-return program: this cat already has a caretaker and is doing fine.

Where Cat Collector fits

Cat Collector is a real-cat collecting app for iPhone, and it is the closest thing to a working cat-dex you can start today. You photograph a real cat, and it becomes a hand-drawn die-cut sticker card with your photo, the place, and your name as the finder. You keep your collection, collect cats your friends have caught through shared card links, send your cats as iMessage stickers, and there is a weekly neighborhood Top Cat board. It is free, no sign-up, and the cats are real, not AI generated.

One thing to be clear about: the coat-badge checklist above is a game you run yourself. Cat Collector keeps your collection of the real cats you catch; ticking coat types off the list is your own side quest on top of it. And the framing holds either way: Coat labels are a fun, real way to sort cats, not a scientific breed ID or a vet's opinion, and a good cat-dex should never pretend otherwise.

If you want to see how it stacks up against other options, our roundup of the best cat spotting apps covers the full field. And if you cannot keep a cat of your own, a cat-dex might be exactly the cat life you can have.

Now go find a tortie. Your dex is waiting.

Sources and further reading

Frequently asked questions

What is a real-life Pokedex for cats?

It is a collection of the real cats you meet in the world, organized so that finding new ones feels like filling out a dex. Instead of virtual creatures, the entries are actual street cats you photograph, and the fun comes from spotting new coat types and completing sets.

Is a cat-dex about breeds or coat patterns?

Coat patterns, and for good reason. Only a tiny share of cats you meet are pedigreed, so labeling a random street cat's breed is mostly guesswork. Coat and pattern buckets like tabby, calico, and tuxedo are visible, real, and fair to call from a photo.

How many cat coat types are there?

There is no single number. Genetics stacks base color, tabby pattern, white spotting, dilution, tortoiseshell, colorpoint, and coat length into countless combinations. A practical cat-dex works well with roughly 12 to 16 starter badges, with room to go deeper once you know what to look for.

Is tabby a breed?

No. Tabby is a coat pattern, not a breed, marked by stripes, swirls, spots, or ticking and usually an M shape on the forehead. Its four core looks are mackerel, classic, spotted, and ticked. Many different breeds and countless mixed cats wear a tabby coat.

What's the difference between calico, tortie, torbie, and tuxedo?

Tortoiseshell mixes black-based and red-based color with little or no white. Calico adds clear patches of white to that mix, making three colors. Torbie is a tortoiseshell with tabby striping showing through. Tuxedo is a black-and-white bicolor that looks dressed for dinner.

Can I safely photograph street cats for a cat-dex?

Yes, with manners. Keep your distance, let the cat approach on its terms, and never chase, corner, pick up, or trespass to get a shot. Unfamiliar cats can bite or scratch when cornered, and feral cats prefer not to be handled at all. A tipped ear means the cat is already cared for.

Can an app really identify a cat's coat type from a photo?

It can get the obvious buckets right, like orange tabby, tuxedo, or calico. It cannot reliably tell black from chocolate, blue from lilac, or true breed ancestry from a phone photo. A good cat-dex treats coat labels as a fun starting point, not a genetic test.