# Why are orange cats more likely to be male, but not black cats?? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [May 1, 2017, 11:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-orange-cats-more-likely-to-be-male-but-not-black-cats/785675 "2017-05-01T23:54:14Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 5\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Tamerlane](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tamerlane/32/7602_2.png) [@Tamerlane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tamerlane)\ **Post date:** [May 2, 2017, 6:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-orange-cats-more-likely-to-be-male-but-not-black-cats/785675/21 "2017-05-02T18:24:17Z")
Okay, maybe this is the confusion. If you take a given situation of say an orange male( O )mating with a black female( oo ) with no other confounding color genes, all females will be calico( X from dad has O, X from mom has o ), all males will be black( because the X comes from mom ). If you have a orange female mating with a black male all females will again be calico, all males will be orange ( X from mom = O ). So in the above simplified situation you get results where all the solid colors are males, all mixed are female ;). But dominant orange isn’t universally distributed. Remember it can only descend through the female line. Apparently in some populations maybe 10% of cats are carrying it and the 10% that are males aren’t going to pass it on. So MOST cats don’t have a dominant orange gene affecting anything - colors just mix and match randomly. Generally I’m _guessing_ this probably swamps out any slight skewing that might result from the earlier example. ---
**Author:** ![Malleus\_Incus\_Stapes](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/malleus_incus_stapes/32/3293_2.png) [@Malleus\_Incus\_Stapes](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malleus_Incus_Stapes)\ **Post date:** [May 2, 2017, 7:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-orange-cats-more-likely-to-be-male-but-not-black-cats/785675/22 "2017-05-02T19:05:00Z")
> [@Tamerlane](#): > > Okay, maybe this is the confusion. If you take a given situation of say an orange male( O )mating with a black female( oo ) with no other confounding color genes, all females will be calico( X from dad has O, X from mom has o ), all males will be black( because the X comes from mom ). If you have a orange female mating with a black male all females will again be calico, all males will be orange ( X from mom = O ). So in the above simplified situation you get results where all the solid colors are males, all mixed are female ;). Yes, Yes! Thank you, that’s what I was trying to say here! > [@](#): > > But dominant orange isn’t universally distributed. Remember it can only descend through the female line. Apparently in some populations maybe 10% of cats are carrying it and the 10% that are males aren’t going to pass it on. So MOST cats don’t have a dominant orange gene affecting anything - colors just mix and match randomly. Generally I’m _guessing_ this probably swamps out any slight skewing that might result from the earlier example. And that was my [del]best[/del] only guess, that the gene distribution made the difference negligible. ---
**Author:** ![Tim\_T-Bonham.net](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/46a35a/32.png) [@Tim\_T-Bonham.net](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tim_T-Bonham.net)\ **Post date:** [May 2, 2017, 9:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-orange-cats-more-likely-to-be-male-but-not-black-cats/785675/23 "2017-05-02T21:05:33Z")
> [@Tamerlane](#): > > But I may not know very far :). Cat color genetics can get rather complex with various exceptions and overrides and as much as I’ve dug into the topic out of curiosity, I’m pretty sure I still don’t have it all down. Heck, I think there are three completely different ways of getting a seemingly pure white cat and the least likely of those ( albino ) comes with various sub-iterations ( i.e. incomplete blue-eyed vs. red-eyed ). Cat coat color is indeed very complex. Just a summary diagram of the various types ([see here](http://cedarseed.com/portfolio/housecat-colors/)) is a full wall-sized poster. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [May 2, 2017, 11:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-orange-cats-more-likely-to-be-male-but-not-black-cats/785675/24 "2017-05-02T23:55:15Z")
> [@](#): > > Quoth **(:3=** : > > If most orange cats were male and most not-orange cats were male, then most cats would be male. No, because there are also some cats that are both orange and not-orange, and those are (essentially) all female. ---
**Author:** ![Pilgrim\_Shadow](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/f4b2a3/32.png) [@Pilgrim\_Shadow](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pilgrim_Shadow)\ **Post date:** [May 4, 2017, 4:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-orange-cats-more-likely-to-be-male-but-not-black-cats/785675/25 "2017-05-04T16:56:10Z")
Ben Franklin said, “All cats are grey in the dark.” 😃 [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-orange-cats-more-likely-to-be-male-but-not-black-cats/785675.md?page=1)