A Beetle (10 years old. on the left) and Rain (3 months old. on the right) comparison.

Rain has been here for a week now and is fitting in well - aside from slowly destroying the leather couch by using her claws to grab on when she fails to jump on it properly -_- As soon as I can find the nail clippers, she is having her baby's first manicure :>

Beetle doesn't seem to care about the tiny newcomer. But she does give him something else to watch sometimes and occasionally she tries to play and gets him moving a little (be it running away hissing or trying to play back and freaking her out) which is all we really wanted there.

He is well set into his sedentary lifestyle, but as she gets older hopefully she will continue to encourage him to be more active, rather than take him as an example XDScience time! To make this an educational entry :p

Genetically, cream cats like these are genetically coded to be 'red' (really kinda a bright orange) with an additional gene to dilute them down to cream (called 'buff')

Orange is a sex-linked colour in cats and carried only on the X Chromosome. (males have one of these (gotten from the mother) and females 2 (one from dad and one from mom)).

So if a male carried the red gene, he will be red. (Ie a non red cat will not give red babies because he will not have the gene).

Females need to have 2 red genes (one from each parent) to express red. If she only gets one, then she will be Calico/Tortioseshell as the red will only partially express.

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So we can deduce that Beetle's mother was Red or calico. His father could have been anything since it is not the male's genetics that determines red in their sons.

Rain's mother would have been Red or Calico as well. But her father must *also* have been red as she gains an X from him and if he has a red X then he is automatically red.

If her mother had not been red (or Calico with a 50% chance of giving a red gene to her daughter and 50% chance of giving something else (Ie a calico could have a red dad and non red mom. Or red dad and calico mom. Or red mom and other colour dad. Or calico mom and other colour dad. Hence why calico females are not uncommon.) but her dad was red, she would have been Calico.

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This is why orange females are rarer than males. And all calicos are female. (Calico males do not exist at all except as a random genetic mutation (too many chromosomes) and they are almost always sterile because of this)