Why are orange cats usually male while calicos, which have orange patches, generally female?

Question

If the orange color is sex regulated, how does it also appear on the females?

In: Biology

Answer 1

To make it short. The orange gene is in the female gene, and since males have one female (X) and one male gene (Y) they either have or don’t have the orange gene. A female has two female genes (X and X), so they can have one which is orange and one which is not, resulting in a partly orange cat.