Three-colored cats are one of the most popular pets who became famous thanks to the unusual color. An unusual phenomenon of this breed the lack of a three-colored color of wool at cats males is considered. What it is connected with?
Origin of three-colored catsThree-colored cats possess a pronounced color in the form of spots of black, red and white color. The black shade appears thanks to a pigment to an eumelanin whereas red completely depends on a pigment of a feomelanin. Their color can change under the influence of certain genes which turn them into red and chocolate, blue and cream and also cream and lilac shades.
The name of three-colored cats of Calico cat (English) comes from a type of cotton fabric which was invented in India.
In Japan this breed is called mike-neko, the "three-colored cat" literally meaning. In the Dutch translation of lapjeskat "the scrappy cat" means. The term "three-colored" in given a case means only coloring of wool and has no slightest relation to the breed. The number of cat breeds which can possess three-colored coloring includes the American and British short-haired cats, Maine Coons, manks, the Japanese bobtails, the Persian cats, exotic cats and the Turkish bathtubs. Primary color at three-colored cats is white whereas on color spots they can have Tabby's drawing.
Why cats are not three-coloredThe lack of a three-colored color at cats of this breed is explained by X-chromosome which defines wool coloring. Unlike the females having two X-chromosome, males have on one H- and the U-chromosome therefore the simultaneous combination of black and orange pigments practically does not meet. The only exception is existence of set of sexual HHU-chromosomes at which cats possess a three-colored or tortoise color.
Most often three-colored cats are completely sterile as existence of two X-chromosomes is the anomaly causing infertility.
The gene of orange which influences a color of wool and is tied to a floor, is only at the Syrian hamsters at cats. All melanotsita which came from a cage with its active alleles "about" paint wool in red, irrespective of a genotype. Melanotsita with active alleles "about" are given black coloring. In the presence in them agouti gene, wool will be covered with islands of a black or red pigment. Today the given gene is very poorly studied, however it is known that it levels action mutant allelya which evenly paints wool melanin of one type. As a result on a red background at three-colored cats spots or strips irrespective of a genotype on agouti gene appear.