The female sex chromosome (X chromosome) also carries the code for an orange or a black coat color the male sex one (Y) does not. Tortoiseshell cats have some pretty cool genetics going on that controls that coloring and explains why they are almost always female and why the few males are so frail. The coloring often crops up in mixed breeds as a result, they don’t tend to have many health problems (except for males which can have fairly serious health issues and a much shorter life expectancy due to their genetics). However, the tortie coloring is found across multiple breeds, so the life expectancy will vary wildly. They are most commonly found among British and American shorthair cats, so figure about twelve to fourteen years, though there was a tortie who lived to be twenty-one years of age. Tortoiseshell cats have the lifespan of their breed. The personality of any cat is bound up more in their breed and how they were raised, not their coloring. (Though I can attest that my torties have been kind of crazy – then again, so was my grey cat, soooo….). Some people swear up and down that tortoiseshell cats have more attitude and are sassier than other cats, but since the tortoiseshell is coloring, it has no real bearing on their personality.
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