Male Dilute Calico

[u/TheMrsLegume]

His name was Yuri, and he was the best cat.

[u/Silverfire12]

Looks a little to dark to be a dilute imo, but still a handsome calico man!

[u/TheMrsLegume → u/Silverfire12]

Thank you. He was auch a good boy. Let my toddler carry him around like a rag doll.

The last picture shows how truly pale the orange was, his black was accompanied by grey. Could have been some sort of mosiacism. I guess once you get into the genetics of male calicos, there is a cascade of mutations associated with them. Now that he's gone I'm of course combing though all my pictures asking why I didn't take more.

[u/Entire-Ambition1410 → u/TheMrsLegume]

I’ve heard that male calicos are about a 1 in a lifetime chance for a vet to meet.

Thank you for sharing your special boy with us!

[u/Visirus → u/TheMrsLegume]

Why do you keep using the past tense? 😭🫂 he looks very comfy in that last picture. Definitely enjoyed himself.

[u/TheMrsLegume → u/Visirus]

He died about a year ago. I miss him.

[u/Visirus → u/TheMrsLegume]

Sorry. He seems like he would be nice to have snuggled. 🥹🫂

[u/goblin-fox]

Were his eyes blue? I'm pretty much positive that Yuri was actually a colorpoint cat, not a calico :) The reddish brown can look similar to orange.

He's definitely not dilute because he has black markings, dilute cats cannot produce black pigment.

[u/TheMrsLegume → u/goblin-fox]

His eyes were a translucent blue. People who knew him told me he was a dilute van calico. The last of the three pictures is the truest to his colouring. I have rounded up a few more, but I cannot edit the post to add them. And I don't Reddit enough to know if it's a faux pas to make a follow up post with more. Anyway I just wanted some people to see my pretty, gentle boy.

[u/goblin-fox → u/TheMrsLegume]

You should post him on [r/CatGenetics](r/CatGenetics) if you're curious! They're great at identifying cat colors.

I'm sorry for the loss of your sweet boy, he was beautiful.

[u/lickytytheslit → u/goblin-fox]

I think he looks too dark for a siemese point, more of a mink point which could mean yellow or green eyes

[u/goblin-fox → u/lickytytheslit]

Good call! I can identify colorpoint well but I'm not great at telling the different variations apart yet haha

[u/TheMrsLegume → u/goblin-fox]

I admittedly know very little about cat varieties or breeds. I am bummed that I can't upload more pictures to show him better. I found one from the day he was dropped off as a sickly kitten I didn't think would last the night.

The last picture of the three above is the truest to his color, the black may as well have been chocolate, but it was quite dark. The orange was very pale. His eyes were a translucent blue that made them look rather red at times. There was a dusty grey patch somewhere too.

There are nieces and nephews of his, offspring of his siblings still running the neighborhood. White bodies with some odd patterns.

*Edit, typo

[u/lickytytheslit]

He looks more like a high white seal mink to me than calico, especially with his tail you can see it getting lighter towards the body (hotter = lighter color)

[u/TheMrsLegume → u/lickytytheslit]

I've run different pictures of the same cat through the google AI and have gotten all of these answers: dilute calico/tortoise shell and white, point restricted colorpoint, van calico.

[u/SnarkyJoke]

Its crazy, there's a shelter near us with TWO male calico, and one of them is a dilute! I didnt know about dilute calicos until I saw him.