A bit of a wild card! What is she?

[marzipan-sydney]

Her mom was a stray orange tabby shorthair who gave birth to three kittens in my garage! Her brothers are both short hair orange tabby. She is a long hair tortise shell calico! Any ideas of what her dad might be?

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• marzipan-sydney
• Feb 25, 2017

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• marzipan-sydney
• Feb 25, 2017

 

[molly92]

Color genes are sex linked, meaning they are only on the X chromosome. The mother must have had the orange gene on both X's, and she gave one of these X's to each of the boys. They also got a Y chromosome from their father, which has no color genes, so they are all orange!

The girl got an orange X from her mother, so she must have gotten a black X from her father, so he was definitely black with no orange.

The white spots come from an entirely separate gene. If they have two copies of the gene, they have lots of white. One copy is some white, and zero copies have no white. If her mom had any white at all, she could have gotten that gene from her and her dad may or may not have had any white.

Long hair is a recessive gene, meaning both parents have to be carrying the gene for the kitten to have long fur. The mother definitely had one copy of the long haired gene and one copy of the short haired gene, so since the short hair gene was dominant, she had short hair. The father could have been long haired, with 2 copies of the long hair gene, or short haired with one copy of each like the mom.

So based on what we know, Dad was definitely black, he may have had some white, and he could have been either long or short haired!

 

[marzipan-sydney]

Wow! Thank you for such a thorough explanation! Fascinating stuff!

 

[StefanZ]

Color genes are sex linked, meaning they are only on the X chromosome. The mother must have had the orange gene on both X's, and she gave one of these X's to each of the boys. They also got a Y chromosome from their father, which has no color genes, so they are all orange!

The girl got an orange X from her mother, so she must have gotten a black X from her father, so he was definitely black with no orange.

The white spots come from an entirely separate gene. If they have two copies of the gene, they have lots of white. One copy is some white, and zero copies have no white. If her mom had any white at all, she could have gotten that gene from her and her dad may or may not have had any white.

Long hair is a recessive gene, meaning both parents have to be carrying the gene for the kitten to have long fur. The mother definitely had one copy of the long haired gene and one copy of the short haired gene, so since the short hair gene was dominant, she had short hair. The father could have been long haired, with 2 copies of the long hair gene, or short haired with one copy of each like the mom.

So based on what we know, Dad was definitely black, he may have had some white, and he could have been either long or short haired!

I must put in a slight modification to this analysis.  Daddy was black and white, probably a tuxedo.

White is dominant, so he had white spots if he had the gene.  And he must have, because momma isnt described as carrying white spot.

 

[1CatOverTheLine]

 
I must put in a slight modification to this analysis.  Daddy was black and white, probably a tuxedo.

White is dominant, so he had white spots if he had the gene.  And he must have, because momma isnt described as carrying white spot.

No mention of the possibility that the compound heterozygote occurrence of the FGF(Fibroblast Growth Factor)5 gene which carries the trait for hair length: M(utation)4 (or, in rare, almost always breed-specific cares, M1, M2 or M3) might be present? 



[A cat with an N/M4 pair can throw either long-haired or short-haired kittens, but a cat with an M4/M4 (or another M/M incarnation - whether that cat is long-haired or short-haired), when bred to any other long-haired cat, will throw long-haired kittens 100% of the time, effectively making the FGF5/M^x/M^x dominant for long hair, just as the M1/M1, M1/M3, M3/M1or M3/M3 pair is for Ragdolls; the M2/M2 pair is for Norwegian Forest Cats, and the M3/M3 pair is for Maine Coon Cats.]

Stefan - your "slight modification," is absolutely accurate, of course; I simply couldn't resist adding the (very uncommon) "long hair essentially dominant" cases into the mix as a further (very) slight modification.

.

 

[molly92]

 
I must put in a slight modification to this analysis.  Daddy was black and white, probably a tuxedo.

White is dominant, so he had white spots if he had the gene.  And he must have, because momma isnt described as carrying white spot.

Yes! I wasn't sure if Mom was full tabby or tabby with white.