If male calico cats are mostly born sterile, what kind of male cat is used to mate with female calicos?
Friday, March 19th, 2010 at
2:12 pm
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Cat Genetics and Coloring
A cat with patches of red and black is a tortoiseshell, or ‘tortie’. Add white, and you get a calico. A tortoiseshell that is homozygous for the recessive ‘dilution’ gene is referred to as a blue-cream, and that’s what color it is: patches of soft grey and cream. This is the same gene that turns black cats ‘blue’ (grey), and red cats cream. A blue-cream and white is generally referred to in the cat world as a dilute calico. The pattern of black/red or blue/cream can either be in big dramatic patches, brindling, or some of both. Having more white seems to encourage the formation of the big patches.
Red in cats is a sex-linked color, carried on the X gene. Therefore, a male cat whose X carries red will be a red tabby. A female cat who carries one red and one non-red X will be a patched tabby, a tortoiseshell, or a calico (if she also has the dominant gene for white markings). A female cat who is homozygous for red (has it on both X genes) will be a red tabby. This is why you see more male red tabbies than females. This is also why male calicos are so rare: you have to have two X genes to be a calico. Male calicos have genetic aberrations of various sorts, of which XXY is most common. While they are most commonly sterile, there *are* documented cases of fertile male calicos. However, the generalization that "all calicos/torties are female" is true 99.999 percent of the time.
The reason red females are "uncommon" is that, statistically, the number of red males is equal to the number of tortoiseshell/calico, patched tabby, and red females. Red males and tortie/calico/patched tabby females can be produced when only one parent has the red gene, but to produce a red female, you must cross a red male with a red/tortie/calico/patched tabby female. That is why red females are uncommon. But not "impossible", in the sense that a male calico is "impossible."
A "solid red" cat will always display the tabby pattern (although it may be very slight or even undetectable without brushing the fur back to check). There’s another gene at work which controls "agoutiness" (whether individual hairs are banded or solid). Cats who are non-agouti will not generally display the tabby pattern, except in red areas. The non-agouti gene does not affect phaeomelanin, the red pigment, so red cats always show their tabby pattern.
The red gene "overrides" the solid gene, making the tabby pattern visible again. (And on other solid colors, you can sometimes notice the underlying stripes, especially in strong light.) Solid red cats at cat shows may or may not be genetically solid–they are (generally longhairs) bred for the "blurring" of the tabby pattern, producing a cat that doesn’t have dramatic markings.
Solid Tabby
—– —–
black brown tabby
blue blue tabby
red red tabby
cream cream tabby
chocolate chocolate tabby
cinnamon cinnamon tabby
fawn fawn tabby
The colors a calico will produce depend on the color of the sire. But at minimum, she can produce red and non-red sons, and patched tabby/tortoiseshell/calico daughters, as well as non-red daughters. Whether she will produce tabbies or not depends on the genetic makeup of the sire. And *any* of the kittens could have white markings, or not.
Basic cat colors:
Color Dilute form
—– ———–
black blue (a grey color)
chocolate lilac (a pale pinkish-grey)
(chocolate is a recessive gene which changes black to brown)
cinnamon fawn (a very pale pinkish-tan)
(a light reddish brown, found mostly in Siamese and Abyssinians)
red cream (ranges from yellowish
to tannish or buff)
(red and cream are sex-linked, on the X gene, and mask
the previous colors. Actually, there’s a separate shade
of red/cream to match each of the previous colors, but
it’s hard to tell them apart, unless you’re dealing with
a tortoiseshell or patched tabby, which has the non-red
areas to give you a hint.)
white
(Here we refer to the dominant form, which is masking over
the previous colors. It has no dilution.)
Everything else is a modifier!
Modifier Dominant/Recessive
——– ——————
white spotting (paws, etc) dominant
polydactyly (extra toes) dominant
manx (taillessness) dominant
silver (inhibits hair color at roots) dominant
white locketing (small spots on chest and/or groin) recessive
dilution (black->blue) recessive
chocolate dilution recessive
cinnamon dilution recessive
bobtail (partial taillessness) recessive
solid (no tabby markings) recessive
long hair recessive
Some genes are incompletely dominant to each other, and are part of a series. For example, the siamese/burmese genes, from most to least colored:
Burmese/Siamese/blue-eyed white/pink-eyed white (albino)
The coloring of the Burmese and the points of the Siamese is temperature sensitive. The cooler extremities of the Siamese are darker; a Burmese that has had a fever may grow in lighter fur for a while! Such changes are usually temporary, but may take some time to grow out.
All cats (even those homozygous for solid) have a tabby pattern. There are different tabby patterns, from most to least dominant:
Mackerel/Classic/Ticked. The spotted tabby pattern is thought to be a var`qiant of the Mackerel pattern, not genetically distinct, but the jury is not yet in.
Smokes and Chinchillas. This is the combination of the expression of the silver gene (a dominant), and the gene for solid color (a recessive). Other modifiers account for whether the cat is a referred to as a smoke, a shaded, or a chinchilla. From most to least colored: a "smoke" has white roots, a "shaded" has about half and half white and color along the length of the hair, and a "chinchilla" has color only on the very tips of the hair. If the cat is a tabby instead of a solid color, that is a silver tabby. And if the base color is not black, that would be added to the name as well: blue-cream smoke, red silver tabby, etc.
(With this in mind, I don’t think anyone can really produce calicos with certainty unless they know the genetic makeup of both cats, and even then there are no guarantees. Even in some pairings where NEITHER cat is calico, some calico kittens can be produced. And the term "true calico" is a bit of a misnomer since ALL calicos are TRUE calicos. It’s not a breed, just a color pattern.)
i think it is a good question… no clue though… whats a calico cat?
Is there such a thing as a male calico? I have seen multi-colored males, but never anything that I could call calico.
My vet says there ain’t no such a animal.
A male cat that doesn’t exhibit the calico colors can still carry the calico genes. If you took a male cat whose mother or grandmother were calico and mated it with a calico female, there is a high probability of that some of the kittens would be calico. Of course, there are other mating combinations that could work too, but this would be the simplest one.
i dont think there are any male calico cats. i have only heard of females.
I could be wrong, but I though calico cats are just sort of nature’s "accident". I have a grey calico and she was born from normal ol’ tabby cats. They are often very "petite" cats too. I didn’t think there were male calicos.
A litter of kittens usually has several similar in color to the mother and several similar to the father. Sometimes there are kittens that look nothing like either so calicos can just pop up anywhere! Calico refers to the color and not the breed but I thought only females could be tri-colored. To my knowledge no one really breeds calicos the way they do Siamese, Maine-Coon, Scottish Fold or any other particular breed. I guess you could call calicos, striped tabbys and other cats of no certain breed mutts. I have a wonderful little calico mutt named Willow.
A calico is not a breed of cat. Calico is just a coloration. There is no such thing as a true calico versus a fake calico or mixed calico. There are multiple breeds of cat that can produce calico or tortishell colorations. The black and red colors are on the x chromosome so that is why only females (in most cases) can have both colors, because they have two x chromosomes and either one is expressed in each cell in the body, resulting in a patchy coat with both colors. In males, they only have one x and one y so they either get a red x or a black x which are expressed all over. Rarely, they will have two x chromosomes and one y, making them a male, but likely sterile. This is similar to Klinefelter syndrome in people.