Calico is a coat pattern of big splotches that are well differentiated in 3 colors (white, and usually orange and black patches). It happens due to x inactivation during fetal development, and this can only happen with female cats or males with xxy.
When the x inactivation occurs at an earlier cell division stage, you get big patches of color. When it happens at a later division stage, you get smaller patches of color.
Calicos have piebalding, which is a genetic condition that causes the white patches (the cat in ops photo is a tabby with piebalding), while torties don’t, so they are just 2 colors.
Torties/calicos can absolutely have stripes. They are sometimes called torbies. It’s not impossible but pretty unlikely that this cat is male. In order for a cat to have both brown/black and orange patches, they must have two different variants of the gene that determines fur color. This gene is carried on the X chromosome. This is why something like 98% of torties/calicos are female.
Add comment