What is the percentage of cats that are orange?

One source said that 5% of all cats are orange. This is wrong. The truth is that we do not know the percentage of cats that are orange. The most common type of orange cat is an orange tabby cat. You can see a few orange tabby Maine Coons on this page and an orange traditional Persian on this page. Incidentally, you probably know that orange cats are referred to as "red" in the cat fancy. There is another orange Maine Coon here.

The point is this. There are probably about 500 million domestic cats in the world and all but a tiny percentage are random bred cats many of which are feral or semi-feral.

As a consequence no survey can be carried out even if there was the will to do it. As to purebred cats that are registered their color will be noted I suspect but the cat associations as far as I can tell do not break down data on the basis of coat color and if they do they don't publish it to the public.

That is it. Answer: we don't know. Orange is a popular color and orange cats are meant to be a bit alpha in character. My guess is that somewhere in the region of about 2-3% are orange. That is a wild guesstimate!

Most Beautiful Orange Cat

CATILLACK, a photo by David McCudden on Flickr. 
Photo is copyright David McCudden

This is a truly beautiful orange cat. I think she is the most beautiful cat I have seen bar one or two others and I have seen a large number of cats as you might expect. Actually she is orange and white. She is a tabby cat. You can see the classic "M" mark on the forehead. Even the mark is beautiful. And she looks very female, sexy almost. Uhmm I have not heard someone call a cat "sexy" before but I have now!

If she was a person she would be walking down a red carpet at the Cannes Film Festival. She would be a film star. Her name is Catillack and she is a Maine Coon cat....err..no, wrong, she looks like a Maine Coon (except for the lack of ear tufts and long ear hair) and looks classy enough to be purebred Maine Coon but is, in fact, a moggie born in a shed I am told. She is definitely the most beautiful moggie I have seen. The photograph is by her human companion, David McCudden. Who takes  a bloody good photograph by the way.

The gene that makes her orange is sex-linked. More sex...The gene is carried on one of the sex chromosomes. The symbol for the gene is O. This gene removes "all the eumelanin pigment from the hair fibres.." Eumelanin produces black, blue and chocolate colours etc.. An alternate pigment is produced called "phaeomelanin".  The pigment granule is lighter and it reflects light differently.

I have quoted Robinsons' Genetics (briefly) and the book says that the tortoiseshell cat is "the heterozygous female" (Oo).

Some people call orange cats "yellow cats". Why not! Yellow tabby cats are one of my favorites.  Martha Kane in Malta cares for an orange tabby amongst the many more she rescues and she says they are more likely to be the boss in a group but in a benevolent way. The orange traditional Persian is also very handsome.

The orange cat varies in the colour/density of the orange. I must say that CATILLACK is the most beautifully deep orange I have seen on a cat. Maybe it is David's photography and the low evening light that enhances the orange and gives it that deep luster. I don't care, she's a very sexy cat.