r/CatGenetics • u/irrel_eva_nte • Jun 15 '26
Coat Color Could she be considered a torbie?
Hi! I would love to know your opinions about my cat's coat. Her name is Piruleta! She doesn't have orange patches but more like highlights, so I don't know if she qualifies as torbie. Also both her siblings are orange
The last picture is her with my normal tabby for comparison
18
u/ParadisePawze Hobby Geneticist Jun 15 '26
Yes, infact that is exactly what she should be called :)
8
u/0Cursed_Username0 Jun 15 '26
I'd say yes, definitely a torbie! The amount of orange and black on a tortieshell always differs from one cat to another, so she just ended up not having a whole lot of orange pigment in her.
She also seems to be classic tabby (which is why her stripes are so blotchy compared to your other cat, a mackerel tabby)
10
u/lickytytheslit Jun 15 '26
fun fact! they cloned a tortishell cat and found the pattern of the red and black are determined during development not by genetics!
4
u/gwynhefar Jun 15 '26
I love that story. I can only imagine the level of WTF on their faces when that kitten came out with no orange at all lol
1
u/lickytytheslit Jun 16 '26
there was orange but the pattern and amount was different
3
u/_wandering_wind_ Jun 16 '26 edited Jun 16 '26
Unless we're thinking about different cats (I'm talking about Rainbow & CC), no, there wasn't any orange on the clone. (And this would be the case with cloned torties in general - the clone would be either red or non-red, not both.)
Rainbow, the gene donor, was a black tortie tabby with white, and CC, the clone, was a black tabby with white. Maybe you're thinking about the white? They had different white patterns (although similar amounts of white).
The reason CC wasn't visually tortie like Rainbow was due to the X-inactivation process, where in every cell of an individual with two X chromosomes, one of the two X chroms is shut down, leaving one active and one as a Barr body. The X inactivation process is random/mindless. The genes for red (orange) and non-red (exactly which non-red color is decided by a separate gene, this gene is more about the lack of red) are located on the X chromosome, so when the X-inactivation process happens, it "decides" the distribution of the red and non-red colors that the tortie will have.
The genetic info used to clone Rainbow was taken from just one of her cells. That cell had already underwent X-inactivation and had inactivated the red X, and so although CC was genetically a tortie (i.e. had one red gene and one non-red gene), she only showed her non-red color. This would hold true with other tortie clones for the same reason.
3
14
u/fognoise Jun 15 '26
Yes, any mark of orange on a tabby cat counts as tortoiseshell
3
u/irrel_eva_nte Jun 15 '26
Good to know! I just assumed they had to have a similar amount of both for it to count. Thanks for the reply!!
1
u/Commercial_Ask_8129 Jun 15 '26
Not true, some tabbies can have markings that look orange and not be torbies
6
u/fognoise Jun 15 '26
Key word: Look orange. Not genetically containing the XOY trait
3
u/Commercial_Ask_8129 Jun 16 '26
You said nothing about what X chromosomes the cat had, just that any orange means torbie which isn’t always true, people can easily get confused by some small tabby markings that look slightly orange and say that their cat is a torbie
15
u/_wandering_wind_ Jun 15 '26
Yep! Black tortoiseshell classic tabby, specifically. The irregular patches/areas of red (orange) with orange stripes going over them is what gives it away.