īut according to an Australian study, there’s an even bigger size difference between orange boys and orange girls than between the sexes of cats of other colors. This is true for most mammals: boys tend to be bigger than girls. In general, male cats are bigger than female cats, regardless of color or breed. This is just a weird little fact about marmalade kitties. Ginger boys are much bigger than ginger girls These cats may have a metallic sheen to their coats. The color, called “apricot” is similar to the color of dried apricots. Interestingly, a “double dilute” red cat is darker than a cream but lighter than an orange cat. To make matters more complicated, there’s a gene that modifies the dilute gene, called, appropriately enough, the dilute modifier gene.Ī dilute cat with a dilute modifier gene is called a “double dilute.” Ginger cats and redheads have something in common Thus, every ginger cat has visible orange tabby stripes. The non-agouti gene is disabled in the presence of the orange gene. There’s a phenomenon in genetics called “epistasis.” It means that one gene is disabled by the presence of another. There’s one situation in which the non-agouti gene doesn’t work at all: in orange cats. You can usually see ghost tabby stripes on “solid-colored” cats.īut the "non-tabby" gene doesn't work on ginger cats The non-agouti gene prevents the hair from growing in with those stripes of lighter and darker color. The non-agouti genes simply hide the tabbiness. But these genes don’t create non-tabby cats. Solid-colored cats have “non-agouti” genes.
If you have a tabby cat, take a close look at a loose hair. The agouti gene gives every strand of fur on a tabby cat horizontal stripes of lighter and darker color. The stripes and swirls that we associate with tabby cats comes from the agouti gene. It takes two Xs to make a girl cat orange (This is putting aside all the special genes that could alter his black or orange genes, of course.)īut the point is that it only takes one orange gene for a boy cat to be ginger.
It only takes one X to make a boy cat orangeīecause a boy only has one X chromosome, he is whatever color is on his X. But all cats, underneath their special colors, are really just orange or black. You’re going to say that you have a gray cat, or a cream-colored cat, or a Siamese cat with points.īut all of those colors come from other genes that “do something” to whatever orange or black genes a cat has, or even hide the orange or black. Now, I know you’re going to tell me that I’m wrong, because you happen to have a pure-white cat, or a brown cat, or a calico. Those are the only two color choices for cats. You’ll never believe this, but cat genetics say that a cat is going to be either orange or black.
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