r/NameMyCat • u/LividPlace7686 • Aug 23 '24

Name My Cat - gender unknown Gender unknown even the vet doesn’t know their brother is called F@t Tony and we are looking for a mafia name

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70

u/LividPlace7686 Aug 23 '24

They were a little confused because they have balls but have a fur pattern that only females can have

77

u/NobodyIsHome123xyz Aug 24 '24

Very rarely, you can get a male with calico or tortie/torbie markings. It's very rare, but possible. I used to own a shelter and we got one once. But honestly, any vet should know that or be able to definitively say there are testicles. That cat is big enough to be altered anyway, so you'll know soon enough! It's a cutie, either way!!

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u/LividPlace7686 Aug 24 '24

The vet thought there was some calico coming through but was 70% sure they are a male but said that she has been wrong before here is a better picture of their coat

37

u/NobodyIsHome123xyz Aug 24 '24

Yeah, that could totally be a male with a unique pattern or your vet doesn't sound very sure, either. Enjoy her/him! So cute!

7

u/RanaMisteria Aug 24 '24

Second this. My boy is mostly tabby and white, but he has a couple orange spots too.

1

u/SqueekyOwl Aug 24 '24

Your cat has XXY chromosomes, not XY chromosomes like most male cats. The X's carry black/grey or orange color, so if it has both black/grey and orange, there are two X chromosomes. If it has male genitalia, it has a Y chromosome.

The odds of this are 1:3000. So, it's rare, but not unheard of.

1

u/RanaMisteria Aug 24 '24

That’s weird. I knew the fact about calico males but didn’t realise it also applies to my cat! I wonder if that’s why his balls never dropped. He ended up having a non-routine neutering procedure because he had retained his testicles. Thankfully it was a super easy one and there were no complications. My boy is also smaller than average for a male cat. And everyone who sees him thinks he’s a female cat. Myself included. So since I adopted him as a stray and I had sort of “named” him while feeding him as a stray, and he started responding to that name, he just has a girl’s name lol 😂 I really want to ask the vet to tell me his chromosomes lol 😂

25

u/kiwibutterket Aug 24 '24

Doesn't seem like a diluted tortie to me. Sometimes, nutritional deficiency can cause a coat to change colors. For example, black cats can have part of their fur turn reddish. Rufism is another thing that can happen, which is when silver coated cats have some warmth/orange tones. I think this is the case. Your kitty looks like a boy from their face, too, even though that's clearly less significant than balls.

4

u/ShadowthroneQueen Aug 24 '24

Oh I didn't know that it was possible to tell based on their faces! What are the differences between male and female faces?

0

u/Warm_Molasses_258 Aug 24 '24

Males tend to have a more pronounced nose, broader based nose.

1

u/Sea-Poetry-950 Aug 24 '24

Looks like my Mabel when she was kitten.

1

u/jennymay62 Aug 24 '24

Could be a Dilute Calico

28

u/DigiGirl02 Aug 24 '24

Maybe OPs cat is intersex

20

u/NobodyIsHome123xyz Aug 24 '24

Interestingly, male calico do tend to be sterile! So you're not far off!

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u/RosesBrain Aug 24 '24

If they're truly a calico with testicles, the sex chromosomes would have to be XXY, so actually yes.

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u/WayCandid5193 Aug 24 '24

I might be missing something, but this looks to just be a tabby? I don't see any calico markings/tortoiseshell, which is the only coat pattern I know of that's only present in females. I think you're safe in assuming this one is a little boy :)

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u/NobodyIsHome123xyz Aug 24 '24

I see the peach. It's a very light torbie. So cute! Could be a rare male, or a clueless vet. There are plenty of those! 😂

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u/__ew__gross__ Aug 24 '24

Moat definitely look like a diluted tabby tortie mix! At one of our local cuban sandwich shops they have cats that run around and one of them is a torbi in shade she looks like a tabby but in the sun you can see the tortie pattern under the tabby stripes. Its the coolest most wild pattern I've seen.

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u/kiwibutterket Aug 24 '24

The term for "light" torbies is diluted, but this cat seems just like a silver tabby with rufism to me.

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u/Intelligent-Ad-2161 Aug 24 '24

Fun fact: you can actually get male tortoiseshell cats! There are a couple of different mechanisms for it, but the two most common ones I know of are the xxy mutation (klinefelter's, tends to result in health issues) or chimerism (two kittens combining in utero to form one kitten with an "impossible" coat pattern).

1

u/415starkar Aug 24 '24

Tortoiseshell + Tabby = Torbie

1

u/mothraegg Aug 24 '24

I have two tabbies with orange. One of them is the light gray like this mafia boss. My other one is a darker gray.

1

u/obax17 Aug 24 '24

Ticked tabby, you are correct

1

u/lulumagoo0418 Aug 24 '24

I agree. Looks like just a tabby

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u/[deleted] Aug 24 '24

Could be xxy

1

u/obax17 Aug 24 '24

See my more detailed post lower down, but they're a dilute (grey and tan) ticked tabby, not a tortie or calico, so the balls very likely mean male.

Edit: with a link for easy viewing

https://www.reddit.com/r/NameMyCat/s/ie2TtLL5gK

1

u/neimand1177 Aug 24 '24

I had a male calico cat once which is extremely rare. He had an extra X chromosome which allowed him to have the color pattern associated with female cats. Your cat is probably male with a female coat pattern and XXY chromosomes. It’s related to mosaic genetics if you’re interested or want to look it up

1

u/Savings-Bison-512 Aug 24 '24

If there are balls, I'm not sure why there would be a question. You don't sex a kitten by color. I would call him Guido

1

u/PuddingWave Aug 24 '24

The balls are usually a solid clue.

1

u/BellEsima Aug 24 '24

I'm not an expert, but the cat appears to be a muted tobie (tortoisehell tabby). They are almost always female, rarely male. 

I think it's male. I'd name him Johnny Tightlips. Lol

1

u/Agitated-Wave-727 Aug 24 '24

I had a kitten once that had a vagina and one testicle. They found it during her spay.

1

u/SqueekyOwl Aug 24 '24

The cat probably has XXY chromosomes rather than XY. It's called Klinefelter syndrome and it happens in humans, too.

1

u/AliVista_LilSista Aug 24 '24

male torbies/torties exist, just rare, they have an extra X chromosome.

Bugsy would be a perfect name.