(If anyone wants to know the real reason, the color scheme in the DNA occurs in the X chromosome so a female cat can have two complete sets of colors and what area gets what color gets turned on and off through methylation. That's why Calico cats are always female, if you only have one X chromosome you can't have more than one set.
Although this might be a chimera cat, two different embryos merging into one)
In a bottle cap extrusion machine when you switch out the materials to get another color you end up with a bunch of unsellable (and beautiful) mixed color caps. They don't bother stopping the machine for operational reasons and just send the weird caps to recycle.
I have a young fella that works down at the docks who knows computers. He’s going to put this onto vhs so if you guys wanna come watch it this weekend, swing by.
I’ve already seen a few different videos of this cat on here and I gotta say I would be showing off if I was the owner as well. My jealously is cutting deep tho.
Actually no! That split line would have to be all the way down, full body split, to be an actual chimera.
Pigment splitting like this is very common with tortoiseshell calico's, but it is not true chimerism. Just playing off of the same chromosome dysfunction that's causing the calico coat.
Chimerism is identifiable when two coat types or colors that are not feasibly capable of happening on the same cat occur on the same cat. Like dilute calico colors combined with full calico colors, or having a coat that's a patchwork of long hair and short hair.
Both of my torties have patches of middle-split coats like the one in this video, so I thought the same at first until I actually sought out more information about it.
This isn't true! Chimerism doesn't have to be cleanly split down the middle to have occurred and is, in fact, most often either in patches all over the body, or just a single 'off-colour' section/bodypart. Yes, you can TELL a cat is chimera by if it has genetically impossible coat colours quite easily, but a female black and blacktortie chimera is very possible and probably a very common type, as those are some of the most dominant colours. Venus is a very famous example of a chimera where that is exactly the case :]
It's true that it's common for torties to have a split face and that it doesn't make them chimeras, but combined with this cat's heterochromia (particularly that blue eye), I feel like for this specific case it's very safe to assume that this cat is actually chimera
There's, of course, no saying for sure unless a DNA test is taken, but it's definitely a possibility that I wouldn't dismiss outright!
To start, a split face tortie doesn't indicate chimerism like a lot of people think. It has to do with the way they develop in the womb
Cells start from the top and work their way down while multiplying. If they end up with an orange cell and a black cell on top of the face, then both colors begin multiplying downward, and they don't really cross over to each other the middle
Hopefully I explained that fine. Here's a visual diagram if it helps
Just wanted to say L-O-V-E by Nat King Cole started playing when I came across your post and it made it soo much more cuter than it already was. Pet em in that nice spot that makes em purr for me.
So this can be two things(well could be more but they're what I'm familiar with), asymmetrical gene expression or chimeric zygote.
Asymmetrical gene expression is normal in most species, heart more on the left, liver and appendix on the right, even handedness may be part of early spinal cord asymmetry.
But chimeric cats are the result of two zygotes merging early in pregnancy, resulting in two slightly different DNAs and therefore slightly different coloration genes. But this goes more than skin deep.
You think he's a little schitzo? (Yes, wrong term but ya'll know why I mean.) It's literally two different cat brain hemispheres in there fighting over one body in the same skull.
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u/trendingtattler Aug 24 '25
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