Encyclopedia > Calico cat

  Article Content

Tortoiseshell cat

Redirected from Calico cat

The term tortoiseshell cat refers to a coloration pattern caused by a specific genetic trait. It is not a specific breed of cat. The tortoiseshell markings appear in many different breeds.

The coats of tortoiseshell cats are a mixture of colours. Their coats combine black, white, red or ginger, and occasionally silver or ginger tabby patterns. The size of the patches can vary from a fine speckled pattern to large areas of colour. Cats with a basic white colour and red and black patches are known as tortoiseshell-and-white or, in the United States, calico cats.

The tortoiseshell coloration is a sex-linked trait, but neither orange nor black is dominant; instead, the two colours appear in patches depending on which X-chromosome is active in the cell and which becomes a Barr body. Because of this, over 90% of tortoiseshell cats are females. Occasionally a male is born. These have Klinefelter's syndrome and are almost always sterile.



All Wikipedia text is available under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License

 
  Search Encyclopedia

Search over one million articles, find something about almost anything!
 
 
  
  Featured Article
East Islip, New York

... 100 females age 18 and over, there are 90.1 males. The median income for a household in the town is $71,106, and the median income for a family is $77,593. Males have a ...

 
 
 
This page was created in 38.5 ms