After we all here on PoC enjoyed seeing Kays Hill ginger cats and then black cats and sharing photos of our own and others we know, Leanne has sent the photos of these beautiful tortoiseshell cats and kittens for us to share.
Two useful tags. Click either to see the articles: Toxic to cats | Dangers to cats
The colour patterns of torties (calicos in the USA) are brindled or patched and their basic two colours are red and black, then they have various dilutes of creams, blues, greys and browns, some along with white.
Some people say these cats have ‘tortitude’ but never having had the pleasure of a tortie cat in our home I don’t know if that is true?
Do you have a tortie cat or know one whose photo you could share here?
Please search using the search box at the top of the site. You are bound to find what you are looking for.
Useful tag. Click to see the articles: Cat behavior
Coming soon……greys and whites, time to start looking out your photos again.
Such lovely photos thanks Leanne for starting this series of cat colours and thanks Ruth for making the posters for all of us to enjoy.
I have has some tortis and calicos over the years. I may be wrong, but I distinguish the two like this: a torti has a “blend” of coloring and a calico has “patches” of colors. They both look like Jackson Pollock works to me.
They are/were all beautiful and, as you inferred, I find their personalities atypical sometimes. Those I’ve had/have live life on THEIR terms. They can be aloof and moody, not always welcoming my approach to be petted or cuddled. THEY let ME know when they are ready. Then, they can be very loving but most always demanding, “You will pet me and hold me MY way or not at all”.
Thanks for that insight Dee. I have not met torties and calicos and had a good chat with them 😉 I appreciate you sharing your knowledge there.
Here’s a picture of the only tortie cat we’ve known personally, she was called Bonnie and she was sister to Narla who lives near us. Bonnie died in 2008. In this photo Bonnie is posing as a biker chic
She’s beautiful – in other languages like Serbian and Slovenian – slavic and cyrillic languages they are known as 3 coloured cats – or tri kolore.
That’s interesting
yeah I don’t know if they have a technical name for either calico (3) or Tortoiseshell (2) cats – but since 3 coloured cats stand out they seem to have adopted this description/name. I would be interested to know what they are called in french/spanish/italian – wouldn’t suprise me if it was trois couleures/tres colores/tricolore 🙂
This is a simplified page on calicos. The favorite Japanese Bobtail is a calico – tricolor. The Japanese “Beckoning Cat” is a calico too. They call them Maneki Neko.
I can tell in the background that you live in exactly the sort of place I wish I did now. That looks like a very quiet road where only resident drive to get home and slowly at that. This is exactly the kind of place I should have chosen to live, plus semi detached houses have their own gardens and all – much nicer than my flat. I’m jealous of where you guys live – I think Walt and Jo really are lucky boys and you even said you had a bit of woods out the back end of your garden over the wall. Couldn’t ask for anything better in my view. I feel like a fool now.
We are in a cul de sac, the second house from the end, it’s ideal for our boyz as no through traffic and most residents drive carefully but even so if our boyz go out that way one of us goes out too.
Not a pretty sight me in my housecoat and socks lol but no one takes any notice, they just shout ‘hello’ and ‘cats are more trouble than kids’ lol
lol – you are so lucky, I hope you appreciate it – I’m sure you do. So many houses are just not built in safe zones. You have the right ingredients. A dead end is perfect. Thats the best. It really is.
Yes we do appreciate it Marc, on behalf of our cats, even though we now have barking dogs in the rented house next door in which we always get druggie/criminal/layabouts, all of them living in that house over the years we’ve been here have been kind about our cats and that’s all that matters. The latest chap isn’t too particular, the dog kennels stink and the place is a mess but if that’s how he likes to live then it’s up to him and apparently the RSPCA think they are looked after OK. We’d never make waves and put our cats welfare at risk. It’s such an ideal place here for cats to live and they are the most important in our lives, if they were ever at risk we’d up and move again without hesitation.
Gloriously clean well defined tortie coat. Pretty cat too.
Yes she was a lovely cat, very sad at the end her dad came to us with her in his arms and we had to do an emergency vet visit, worst outcome, we cried all the way home.
I love this picture
She’s lovely her colours are very defined, very pretty girl 🙂
Lovely article Ruth its interesting to see a showcase of all the different colours of cats look forward to seeing more! 🙂 Like you we have never had a Tortie in our family either however 2 of my aunties each had one both were without White. They were both very pretty lady cats. I find it fascinating that its very rare even unheard of to find a male Tortie. There are some with White but never pure Tortoiseshell same way you will never see a female all Ginger cat. With White yes but not all Ginger hence the ‘Ginger Tom’.
Yes we’d often get torties in to be neutered at the vets I worked at, the client sometimes thinking it was a male cat they had, but it always turned out to be female and the gingers turned out to be male.
It was amazing the number of people who didn’t know the sex of their cat, we always checked.
our ollie is an all ginger queen. which is why she was called oliver by the people who had her before us, they thought she must be a male and it was’nt until ‘he’ was taken to be neutered that the vet told them ‘he’ was a ‘she’. by that time they had gotten used to calling her oliver so never changed her name, we, however, shortened it to ollie. i have never heard of a male torti though.
Thats amazing – an orange lady cat. Ollie is a nice name. One of my cats called is Lilly but I call her Billy – she’s very boyish too – but Billy suits her perfectly. I even call her Bill or Bills. Sometimes it becomes Bubs or Balsybubs lol 🙂
one of kevins dogs name is jilly but more often than not she gets billy or silly billy! is it any wonder our animals ignore us at times!! lol
ha ha – I often call Lilly silly billy because she often is. lol 🙂 🙂
Beautiful – I love torties but aren’t these Calicos?
Here’s aCalico I know who happens to also be called Gigi but with a much softer sounding ‘G’ – she was named after my Gigi in Canada 🙂 – she’s very sweet and gentle. (I won’t put pics of Molly because she’s something else? A tortie without the white? Or does Molly count?
Not a great picture I know – that’s her tabby brother on the other leaf 🙂 Here’s another blurry shot of her – she’s grown up now – I’ll have to see if I have a photo of her now:
They were both found without their mother and they were doing very badly being bottle fed at the shelter – it was seeming like they wouldn’t make it so we decided to take them to our home, a less stressful environment and see if they would do better – and they did – they grew up nice and healthy and my ex kept them and they live there with her now. We bottle fed them and kept them in a box til they got big enough to climb out. At this stage in the photos they were such fun – running and playing and then falling asleep heavily. So full of curiosity and energy. They have a special relationship with us, – and now mainly my ex because we were like their parents bottle feeding them etc. They really look at you like you are their family unlike kittens who have their cat birth mothers. Amazing really.
They are both lovely kittens and I really love their cat furniture don’t see anything like that here.
What pretty little kittens, I love the torties long black sleeves, sounds like you and your ex saved their lives, you’re a good man Marc
A cat’s playground.
You have cat heaven going on, Marc. I love your style and your cats!
Yeah some people definitely think I’m weird with all the cat-centric stuff going on in my place but I tend not to let that many people in these days. It’s easier 🙂
You’re more normal than 99% of people.
Beautiful sweet looking cat. Is this your home? Torties without white count 😉 Can we see Molly please!
This was my home – its all my stuff though – my huge mural on the wall of animals and nature and my cat ‘flower’ and tree and there must be at least 100 balls and toys around 🙂 here is Molly at about 6 – 7 months old:
…and another with her belly 🙂
molly is beautiful marc, she looks just like our tipsy. has she got one really big front white paw? lol.
lol – no not white actually – I think just orange – so she’s not a 3 coloured cat as calicos typically are.
Blimey though it really does look like white in the photo! I’ll have to have a proper look under her paws.
I remember Molly. She is stunning. The sort of cat looks people talk about. As for your home, I think you are in the minority. Is there a human section? 🙂 At least one room given over for humans.
Now, she is what we call a true torti! Perfection.
Yes she is what I understand ‘tortoiseshell’ to mean – I’ve always thought if you add whit you have something else – what the americans call calicoe. 3 colours.
And Michael this one is a question – is she a Tortie? I might be adopting her forever if her people can’t keep her, she is called Piki – which is a short form of the word pikica (pronounced pikitsa) which means ‘little’ when referring to something female – in Slovenian. She’s wonderful. She even talks a bit, like my Gigi 🙂
I’d say she’s a variation of a tortie.
She’s beautiful too.
i would say she certainly has torti markings, she is quite unusual looking is’nt she? lovely!!
I think I added a pic of her once before maybe, here’s another, she’s lovely:
Just seen this picture, Marc. She is a calico. I can see some orange fur in this picture.
Very pretty, she reminds me of the colours of poor old Grumpy Cat
She does y9u are right. Those dark areas around her eyes do it for me.
Yes exactly it’s her eyes that remind me of GC
Marc, it is not clear but I think she is a calico because there appears to be some dilute orange fur. She is a classy looking cat. Fine featured. Update: I have just seen the other photo where orange fur is more clearly shown. She is a calico, I believe.
Ironically and wierdly I made the mural when I was in my early 20s and there’s many animals on it, many of all kinds but there is not a single cat! How weird is that!
From what I can see of the mural it’s lovely, I would love to be able to make something like that, you’re a clever lad.
you’ll have to squeeze one in somewhere marc
Yes! I know – I certainly think it needs a few 🙂
We call them torties, Americans call them calicos, they are one and the same 🙂
To me a tortoiseshell is like Molly – orange and black mainly, whereas a calico is 3 coloured orange, black and white. The 2 are separate in my mind. Completely. I see Calicos and Tortoiseshells. In eatern europe and cyrillic languages calicos are known as tri kolore – 3 coloureds.
We just call them all torties, but it doesn’t really matter what anyone calls them because whatever colour or whatever they are called, each and every cat is beautiful and purr-fect too.
I agree Ruth. Torties and tortie and white (calico) are somewhat interchangeable. Calico is the American word for tortie and white.
They are mainly calicos – torties and white – there are one or two pure torties as far as I can see. I think we can bundle them together. People tend to!
Yes it’s a shame some other cat coat colours are less popular. As I said we have never had a tortie cat in our lives having mainly had blacks and black and whites along with just one ginger and one brown tabby and one grey, we’ve found all coloured cats to have their own purr-sonalities no matter what their colour.
Torties are popular. Which means some other coat types are less popular. I don’t like that! Anyway, they are beautiful. I think I concluded about 4 years ago that calicos (tortie and white) did not have a special character. However, only a person who has lived with lots of cats can tell us for sure. Dee, in a comment lower down states that they have a special character.
Here is a hairless cat with a tortie coat! Photo copyright Helmi Flick. The skin color matches hair colour and in any case the peach fuzz (fine downy fur of a hairless cat) has color too. The cat’s name is Echo. A Sphynx cat.