A trademark Helmi Flick cat photograph of a cat whose name is Lance. I don’t know anything about this handsome cat except his name. I have decided that he is a random bred show cat with a dilute calico coat or, in English cat fancy language, a dilute tortoiseshell and white cat. You probably know that you don’t have to be a purebred cat to be strutting the cat show cat walk.
Why have I decided that Lance is a random bred cat? Well I could be wrong! But he has the appearance of a random bred cat. By that I mean that his overall appearance is absolutely mainstream. There is no sign of selective breeding.
Selective breeding is designed to bring a cat out of the mainstream and separate the cat’s appearance from other breeds.
So, when you see a perfectly balanced cat with no distinguishing features in respect of body conformation, head shape, ear size, eye size etc. you can be fairly sure that the cat you are looking at is a moggie even though there are plenty of very glamorous moggies that look every bit as beautiful as a purebred show cat.
Lance is actually quite a dark calico that has been dilute to grey. He would have been a black calico probably if he was not a dilute one! Complicated…
Lance is a very handsome solid looking male cat with a bit if ruff around the face that reminds me of the wild lynx. Not that he is in anyway connected to a lynx.
“Calico” is an American term and the calico coat is black, white and orange. You can see another dilute calico on this page and this page explains things in more detail plus some more pictures of cats.
Yes good point Dan. They are a rare cat.
Only 1 in 10 calico are male. Very handsome cat.