Tortoiseshell cat
From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia
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Tortoiseshell is a cat coat coloring named for its similarity to tortoiseshell material.
Tortoiseshell cats are almost exclusively female. Male tortoiseshells are rare and are usually sterile.
Also called torties for short, tortoiseshell cats combine two colors other than white, either closely mixed or in larger patches. and the "black" can instead be chocolate, grey, tabby, or blue. Tortoiseshell cats with the tabby pattern as one of their colors are sometimes referred to as a torbie.
"Tortoiseshell" is typically reserved for particolored cats with relatively small or no white markings. Those that are largely white with tortoiseshell patches are described as tricolor, tortoiseshell-and-white (in the United Kingdom), or calico (in Canada and the United States).
Tortoiseshell markings appear in many different breeds, as well as in non-purebred domestic cats. This pattern is especially preferred in the Japanese Bobtail breed, and exists in the Cornish Rex group.
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