Coat color on cats is sex linked. Sexy cats have... No, never mind. The coat color gene is carried on the X chromosome. For anyone whose parents didn't let them take biology in high school, females are XX, males XY. Calico cats get their coat color when they have two X genes carrying the orange coat color chromosome. Shouldn't they be orange then? Nope, because in the case of two O for orange genes, something called mosaic inheritance comes into play - the fur will be orange, white, and shades in between, giving the classic calico coat. Since a male can only one X and, therefore one O gene, a male cat will never display the mosaic calico pattern EXCEPT if he is a highly unusual XXY male which can occur but the odds are something like 1 in a thousand.
By the way, Wolf, just because your Israeli friend considers cats vermin doesn't mean that cats did not originate in the Middle East. The cats probably consider her and the other humans there illegal immigrants from Africa and, thus, vermin, as well.
I'm not fond of pack rats. Doesn't mean that they didn't evolve in the Southwest.
End of science lesson. Quiz on Friday.
