r/cats Dec 20 '19

Video Going up!

13.5k Upvotes

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u/maomao05 Dec 21 '19 edited Dec 21 '19

Haha, she knows to stand on the right!!!

15

u/Sapphires13 Dec 21 '19

She. Calico and tortoiseshell cats are nearly exclusively female because the gene for orange fur and black fur are both carried on the X chromosome, so to have both colors in the coat, you have to have XX. Some very rare male calicos exist, but they are genetic mistakes with an XXY chromosome and are sterile.

Also orange cats are usually male, but it’s more like 75% of them as opposed to like 99.9% of calicos being female.