Here’s a photo I took at the entrance of the Istanbul Archaeological Museum a few years back. Istanbul is full of cats, and many people, including those who run mosques, take care of them. Thus many of the strays are in good condition.
Here’s one worshiping her ancestors:
He/she appears more to be expecting worshippers than worshipping.
This cat is overwhelmingly likely to be a she.
Black and ginger (Sometimes called red) genes occupy the same locus on the X chromosome.
The only way to have both colours is two have two X chromosomes one with each colour.
So it can only be a male if it is an aberrant XXY which is sterile.
The only other possibility is a chimera formed from two combining embryos in the womb.
Agreed; I’ve changed it to her.
Plus “random X silencing,” fairly early in the embryo’s development. The same process is responsible for the rare humans with tetrachromic vision. IIRC.
I recall reading the blurb on the back of a book once telling me the whole book was devoted to the genetics of calico cats. But the wife hit me until I put down all the books bar one, and the cat book didn’t make the cut.
Reminds me of the Lion Fountain in the Alhambra in Spain. (I often link to it when people say how depicting animals in holy places can be offensive to 1.6 billion Muslims — the lions were even a gift from a Jewish vizier.)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Court_of_the_Lions
Love the composition!
Happy to hear they’re caring for the stray cats, which would make the kitties somewhat less “strayed,” which is wonderful.
Carl Kruse
OT, but anyone who thinks evolution has won the argument so Jerry, Dawkins, et al, should give it a rest should look at this from A N Wilson’s Books of the Year in The Spectator:
Michael Denton’s Evolution: Still a Theory in Crisis (Discovery Institute Press, £16.80). A sequel to his 1985 book — Evolution: A Theory in Crisis — this takes us up to date with the dazzling developments of life sciences over the past 30 years. Denton is a sceptic about Darwin’s theory of evolution on purely scientific grounds. It is hard to see how anyone reading his book could not be persuaded. Palaeontology provides abundant evidence of evolution within species, but none of one species morphing into another. Denton is fascinatingly clear in his exposition of the science of genetics, and how it destroys the Darwinian position. A truly great book.
http://blogs.spectator.co.uk/2016/12/spectator-books-year-evolution-still-theory-crisis/
The battle is far from over, even in the U.K.
I don’t think I’ve ever read a page of the Spectator, even in the dentist’s waiting room. If this is the calibre of their book reviewers, then I see no reason at all to pick up a copy. Is it by any chance printed on usefully absorbent and finger-proof paper?