One of the most striking examples of this mutation is sub-Saharan Africa’s king cheetah, which has a blotched pattern similar to that found on a tabby cat, also controlled by Taqpep. The researchers observed the mutation in a captive breeding program at the Ann van Dyk Cheetah Centre in South Africa because, while the king cheetah pattern occurs naturally in the wild, only a handful of sightings have been reported since the early 1900s.