Show some Tortitude
Tortitude is what tortoiseshell cats have.
This is what Tortie (or Torty ) Cat Appreciation Day (celebrated on 17 April.) Is all about.
Tortoiseshell is not a breed but a colourway, a mixture of red tones (ginger, orange, yellow) and black (chocolate , blue, grey), named after the patterns and colours seen in a piece of polished tortoiseshell.
Like the Egyptian queen Cleopatra, tortoiseshell cats display infinite variety. Variegated colour can come in speckles, small patches (mosaic), big patches (patchwork) and sometimes the cat has a different colour on each side, as if they have been assembled from the parts of two different cats and put back on the road. They can have tabby spots and stripes within the colourway. They can have long or short hair. They can go lighter (strawberry blond, blue rinse, café crème) or darker (chocolate, rust ,steel). They can have white patches, or even whole bodies with the torty bits appearing at point (ears, muzzle, tail, toes). Torties with white bits are known as calico cats in USA, tricolour elsewhere.
Any cat, pure bred or moggy, can be a tortoiseshell, so this is a very inclusive party; it is also almost exclusively female.Torties are a matriarchy. Every 3000 torties or so, a male is born, but but they are usually sterile and doomed to a life of ill health. (I’ll explain the genetics of this at the end, because you need to concentrate.)
So what is tortitude exactly? Catting with attitude.
Torties, it is said, strut their stuff, flaunt their gorgeous fur, are mistresses of the eye roll and the metaphorical hair toss, and ooze sassy girl power. They have a reputation as divas, essentially strong-minded uppitty women who know their own worth and are not about to take any tosh. There’s probably a secret sorority pledge of divacity that all torties take as soon as their eyes open. (Unfortunately I am not a tortie, neither of course is Belvedere, so we cannot report first hand on this.)
There is no evidence that torties channel Maria Callas more than any other cat does, but hey, don’t throw shade on what must be a smart tactic to get humans to obey your every whim. On the other hand, it’s not difficult for any female of any species to be labelled uppitty. As Rebecca West* would have said had she been a cat, ‘'I only know that people call me a diva whenever I express sentiments that differentiate me from a doormat.’
Despite the pampered princess slur, torties have always been well loved. In Ireland, they are considered good luck; in the US they are sometimes called money cats, as they bring fortune. (If you have access to a tortie, get her to choose your lottery numbers.) In Japan, torties were much in demand as ship’s cats, as sailors and fishermen believed they could ward off ghosts, storms and shipwrecks.
The Science Bit
Why are nearly all tortes female?
In all mammals, sex is determined by X and Y chromosomes. Males carry XY chromosomes, females carry XX. The gene for fur colour is carried on the X chromosome, and can code for red or black (or their variations). Female cats (two X chromosome) have the option of red or black or both. Male cats have only one X chromosome, so can go red OR black but not both. The very occasional male tortoiseshell will be carrying an extra X chromosome, which means that they will be sterile.
An Inexplicable Oversight
Tortoiseshell Cat Appreciation Day was set up in 2011 by Ingrid King, (author, cat expert and champion of the word tortitude) in honour of her own tortoiseshell, Ruby. You may be shocked (Belvedere was) to discover that although TCAD is celebrated with great enthusiasm the world over, it is not yet officially recognised. This is an inexplicable oversight which we hope will soon be rectified. You can read more about TCAD on Ingrid’s website, Purrs of Wisdom, https://ingridking.com/tortoiseshell-cat-appreciation-day.
* Rebecca West, aka Cicely Isobel Fairfield (1892-1983), was an English writer, literary critic, suffragist, political thinker and celebrated intellectual. For ten years she was the lover of novelist H.G. ‘Time Machine’ Wells, who was owned by a cat called Mr Peter Wells.
