Photo from Why Does My Cat Try to Climb Walls? What to Do to Make Them Stop SO ARE THERE NO MALE CALICO CATS? This is why you see many male cats who are orange or black and orange with white or black with white. This creates the possibility for a cat to become a tortoiseshell cat, though if the conditions are right cats may have the possibility to express white based on their other genes.ĭue to the fact that males have XY chromosomes, the majority will only display black or orange. Since female cats have XX chromosomes they are able to express both black and orange. This is why calico cats often appear to have a splashed look of colour on their coats. If a cat has an X-inactivation it commonly leads to a random mix of colours. Now when you dig further into the genetics you realize that in some female cats, one of the X chromosomes may be deactivated. Instead, white is expressed from a completely separate gene. White, unlike black and orange, is not found in X or Y chromosomes. The colours black and orange are only found inside of X chromosomes, however, only one colour is usually expressed when a cat is born. Just like humans, female cats have two X chromosomes and males have one X and one Y. This is actually true of many physical features on a cat, though we won’t dive very far into that. Now, unlike eye colours, coat colours can be complicated as they are so heavily connected to the gender of the animal. It all has to do with the genetics mother and father cats pass down into their baby cats and which genes they have that are dominant or non-dominant (also known as a recessive gene). I shockingly didn’t learn a whole lot about genetics when I was in high school, but my partner, who is a biology major, sat me down and explained the whole process to me a few years back.įur colouring works very similarly to the way that eye colouring does. Photo from Our 78 Favourite Calico Cat Names HOW FUR COLOURING WORKS (GENETICS) Of the many breeds of cats that there are, the following are known to have the most frequent calico colourings:
Calico is merely a colouring or patterning. With the number of cat breeds out there, it can be confusing what names are actual breeds and what names are not.Ĭalico, for example, is not a breed. Tortoiseshell cats are usually classified by their black and orange coat, while calico cats require white in their fur as well. Sometimes calico cats are called “tortoiseshell and white cats” especially outside of North America.Īnother name for them is “tri-colour cat”, however, this is also less commonly used than “calico cat” or simply “calico.”Ĭalico cats often get confused with Tortoiseshell cats. Other colours that calico cats can have include ginger, gray and cream. There are a lot of myths about calico cats out there, so today I thought I’d break some down for you, including the ever-illusive: can Calico Cats be Male? FIRST, WHAT IS A CALICO CAT?Ĭalico cats are defined as domestic cats who have spotted or particoloured coats.Ĭalico cats have coats that are predominantly white with splashes of two other colours, the most common being orange and black. I was quickly caught up on how calico cats are actually quite sought after, especially when they are male.
Shortly after adopting Kalista we kept bumping into people asking us if the rumours were true about calico cat personalities. Though, that being said, this was not a requirement for adopting a new cat. In regards to Kalista’s coat, we thought it was really cute if we adopted a second cat that had a white belly like our first cat, Beau, had. When we first adopted our cat Kalista we weren’t aware of how special calico cats were.
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