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This is seriously the most adorable cat I have ever seen!
Just curious because I’m only half-remembering how it’s determined - Would a clone of the kitten have the same colorations?
No. The tiny little gonads will be either gray or orange. The gonads may still be a mixture, but each individual cell will be one or the other. So the gamete produced by that cell will have the same DNA of just that cell even though the organ is a mixture.
Hold on, so this cat is an actual chimera?
Yeah it is possible. So if I am remembering college correctly a chimera in biology is when two zygotes merge in the first few days of life. This means that some of the cells will divide off zygote one and some off zygote two. This can lead to stark lines in phenotype expression. Such as two colored animals.
Though also if I remember correctly the color in cars is sex linked. So if the cat is female. One X chromosome could have one color and the other X chromosome could have a different color. Depending on which X is activated in each cell it can lead multiple colors. That is how you get calico cats. I just can't remember if that can lead to this type of color expression.
Oh and just because someone is going to wonder white is not a color. It is the lack of a color.
Chimeras are not that rare. They happen e.g. whenever some mutation happens early in development: one half of one quarter or one eighth, … of the cells will be of the mutated kind. There's also other ways
It looks that way. From a pretty early stage I would guess. Like 4 or 8 cells or something?