Genetically confused cat.

[Mutad0r]

First off, I'd like to say that the cat is dead. She died about 5 years ago.

 

So anyway, we had a cat. She was left at the door of the church in the winter, so we do not know where she came from.

She had a particularly interesting perk ( although sadly, I only now realize how important of a discovery it COULD have been.).

Of about 7 times that she had kittens, all of them were female. She always had 3 kittens at a time, so that would make 21 females in total, 2 of which we kept, neither seemed to have the perk.

I also understand that it could have been a lucky streak, but I was wondering what could cause only female kittens and how much of an impact this could have made.

[Tr0x]

First off, I'd like to say that the cat is dead. She died about 5 years ago.

 

So anyway, we had a cat. She was left at the door of the church in the winter, so we do not know where she came from.

She had a particularly interesting perk ( although sadly, I only now realize how important of a discovery it COULD have been.).

Of about 7 times that she had kittens, all of them were female. She always had 3 kittens at a time, so that would make 21 females in total, 2 of which we kept, neither seemed to have the perk.

I also understand that it could have been a lucky streak, but I was wondering what could cause only female kittens and how much of an impact this could have made.

 

The best answer to this is that it was a "lucky streak". There's a 50% chance of having a female. So the probability of having 21 females and no males is...

= 0.5^21

= 0.000000477

= 0.0000477%

Or odds of 2096435:1

 

Given that there are many more than 2096435 mating cats in the world, I'd suspect this situation is not uncommon (but still pretty cool!)

 

Another possible explanation for this would be if the father had Klinefelter's syndrome. This means he would be a "XXY" male, so instead of a 50% chance it would be a 66% chance in favour of female offspring, or odds of 624999:1 for this same situation occurring. I don't know if this can happen in cats, but it can happen in humans and mice apparently.

[Nataliasmith]

genetics is my favorite subject always..for each & every subject cf for the propagation of life

[Hal.]

Maybe the cat has a preference for all female offspring in a psychological sense , in that she may have taken the male offspring and dug a hole in the ground to bury them . This is complete speculation .

[Vindhya]

"Another possible explanation for this would be if the father had Klinefelter's syndrome.This means he would be a "XXY" male, so instead of a 50% chance it would be a 66% chance in favour of female offspring, or odds of 624999:1 for this same situation occurring".

-Originally posted by Trox

 

 

Do cats get Klinefelter's syndrome? Even if they get can that cats be abe to produce sperms?(even if they do ,does meiotic non-disjunction always occur in them so that no Klinefelters is born again? )

Edited June 30, 2011 by Vindhya

[ksue12]

This doesn't exactly answer the question of why she had ALL female offspring, but it is something relatable. I was reading yesterday on Toxoplasmosis. It is a parasitic infection of animals--predominantly in cats. It somehow affects their offspring gender, but the reverse of your situation. If I remember correctly, it said that there is a higher male offspring percentage, something like 0.66%.

 

So, even though Toxoplasmosis doesn't apply here, it could be some other odd condition with the cat that affected this.

[wikiro]

She could have been heterozygous for x linked lethal, and this could then be passed down to her progeny and that's why you see the males showing up in progeny. There is a 50% chance of a male getting the lethal gene, but this makes it about 1/3 chance of male offspring. After that its all luck and she had female babies.

 

 

Klinefelter's syndrome makes sterile Kikis' if they did get it.