The Reasons Why Male Calico Cats Rarely Found

VIVA – In Indonesia, there are a lot of three-striped cats – Brown, White, Black or it can be orange – but most of them are female. Male calicos are rarely found in the cat world, only females carry the chromosomal combination needed for the calico pattern.

Being calico doesn't affect the cat's personality or lifespan, although males tend to live fewer years than females due to the chromosomal differences discussed below. Here are the reasons why male calico cats are rarely found.

Genetics is the reason calico cats are so rare. Coat color in cats is typically a sex-linked trait, in other words, color is coded into certain chromosomes.

Both male and female cats can be orange (a mutant gene) or black because the gene that controls those colors is on the X chromosome. And while females can have both colors, because they have two X chromosomes, males, who have one X and one Y chromosome, can only have one or the other unless they have a genetic abnormality. In that case, three chromosomes—including two Xs—are present. This is why the vast majority of calico cats are female.

As information, for a male cat to have a calico pattern, the feline has to have three sex chromosomes: two Xs and a Y. This phenomenon can happen in both humans and animals and is, in either case, known as Klinefelter syndrome.

The XXY combination can occur when there's an incomplete division of the male's XY chromosome pair at the time of fertilization.

This phenomenon is rare, although the likelihood of a male cat ending up with an extra X chromosome is unclear. Klinefelter syndrome affects only one in every 500 to 1,000 humans. Like humans with this condition, cats with the XXY combination have malformed sexual organs, which typically makes them sterile. This makes them an unpopular pick for breeders, despite their rarity.