Orange Cat Lovers, Rise Up!

Short Wave

Approximately 80% of orange cats are males, including the four orange cats owned by the Short Wave team. Scientists have long suspected that orange color was a sex-linked trait — hiding somewhere on the X chromosome. Now, scientists at Stanford University and Kyushu University in Japan have characterized the mutation responsible for orange cat coloration. Both groups published their results in the journal Cell Biology this week.

Have a question about the animals all around us? Email us at shortwave@npr.org — we'd love to hear from you!

Listen to Short Wave on
Spotify and Apple Podcasts.

See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for sponsorship and to manage your podcast sponsorship preferences.

NPR Privacy Policy
More description
Approximately 80% of orange cats are males, including the four orange cats owned by the Short Wave team. Scientists have long suspected that orange color was a sex-linked trait — hiding somewhere on the X chromosome. Now, scientists at Stanford University and Kyushu University in Japan have characterized the mutation responsible for orange cat coloration. Both groups published their results in the journal Cell Biology this week.

Have a question about the animals all around us? Email us at shortwave@npr.org — we'd love to hear from you!

Listen to Short Wave on
Spotify and Apple Podcasts.

See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for sponsorship and to manage your podcast sponsorship preferences.

NPR Privacy Policy
2025-05-16 8 min
Listen elsewhere

Available Results

Generated results are saved to your library for reuse and search.

No generated results are available for this episode yet.

Transcript

No transcript is available for this episode yet.
Sign in to generate a transcript for review.
Sign in

Chapters

No chapters available.