Mewtant orange agents of chaos

Photo by Mauro Lima on Unsplash

In my experience, most orange cats are a bit… (searches for least prejudicial term) random. I’m not the only one who thinks so—just a couple of weeks ago my physical therapist wondered aloud, “Why are all orange cats such assholes?”1

To me the answer is obvious: because most of them are boys. And when it comes to mammals, nine times out of ten males are more likely to be aggressive, unpredictable, and just plain barmy than females.

Apparently, the polite, scientific term for orange cat arseholery is ‘chaotic behaviour’, and some nice people in Japan and the US—two research groups operating independently but arriving at the same conclusion—have published an article in Current Biology about all this.

What it boils down to is that causes the orange colour in cats is a mutations that deletes a section of DNA in the ARHGAP36 gene on the X-chromosome. Cats, like a lot of mammals (including humans) are generally female if they have two X-chromosomes and male if they have one X and one Y. If there are two Xs, and only one has the mutation, then you tend to get calico or tortoiseshell kitties—who are girls. Occasionally you get mutations on both Xs, and then you can get an orange female, but it’s much more rare. Boy cats, on the other paw, only have one X, so if that happens to have the mutated section of ARHGAP36, then, hey: male ginger mewtant.

Does this mutation lead to the arseholery? The Stanford researchers thought not, suggesting rather (according to Live Science) that ginger cats’ “chaotic reputation is more likely due to most orange cats being males” but couldn’t rule out ARHGAP36 being a factor, possibly by affecting other tissue in the body.

What is it about orange agents of chaos…?

Our own two fabulous furry felines are, of course, not orange, but, well, they are boys. And for those who like to hear about Charlie and George’s latest adventures, yesterday I did a post on Patreon—public, and so free to all, members and not—”Sunday Morning With Charlie and George,” in which our beasties try a variety of tactics to get our attention…

Kelley disagrees on this—she’s always wanted a big old orange cat. Somehow we just never seem to get one… ︎