Let’s say it’s almost true, since less than 1% of tricolor cats are male and, even so, the result of a chromosomal anomaly. To understand how the color of a cat’s coat is defined, you must first know two things: this characteristic is inherited from the animal’s parents and the color genes (black, white and yellow) are present on the X chromosome. passes an X-type chromosome to the offspring and the male can send an X, giving rise to a female (XX), or a Y, forming a male (XY). Each cat, therefore, has a pair of genes related to color and these genes can be dominant or recessive. “For a female to have three colors, she needs to have one X chromosome with the yellow gene and the other X with the dominant white gene,” says biologist and doctor in animal genetics Edislane Barreiros de Souza, from the São Paulo State University (Unesp), in Assisi (SP). In the case of the male, for him to be tricolor, he would also need to have two X chromosomes (the one with the yellow gene and the one with the white gene), in addition to the Y chromosome, which makes him male. This would result in a chromosomal aberration. When such rarity happens, the cat tricolor (XXY) is sterile.
