the.com/calico
a coat pattern so genetically locked, nearly every calico is female.
means A patterned cotton fabric printed with small, bright designs — or, by extension, a cat with patchy white, orange, and black coloring resembling that print.
from From Calicut, the port city on India's Malabar coast (now Kozhikode, in Kerala), where European traders bought this printed cotton. The fabric took the city's name, anglicized into 'calico,' and the word later leapt from cloth to the patchwork-coated cat that looks as if it were cut from the same bolt.
- male rarity
- about 1 in 3,000 calicos is male
- sterile males
- those rare males are almost always infertile
- x chromosome
- color comes from random X-chromosome shutdown
- not a breed
- calico is a pattern, never a breed
- state cat
- Maryland's official cat, matching its oriole bird
calico cat — domestic cat with patchy orange, black, and white fur due to x-linked color genes
calico fabric — plain-woven cotton textile from calicut, india, traditionally printed with bright patterns
calico bass — freshwater fish (pomoxis), also called crappie, with mottled markings found across north america