Chimera cat

[snopes]

http://www.snopes.com/photos/animals/chimeracat.asp

[Spud Sabre]

That's one cool kitty.

[mouse goddess]

It's been a while since I took genetics, but aren't all tortoiseshells considered chimeric?

Back when I actually WAS mouse goddess, I made chimeric mice. We'd inject genetic material (stem cells) into a blastocyst. The blastocyst was for a white mouse, and the stuff we were injecting was coded for a brown mouse, so we could see how much of the injected material "took". We'd get some really interesting mice out of it....from all white with the tiniest bit of brown, to all brown with the tiniest bit of white, but most were something in between, Dalmatian spotted mice, or mice that were half and half.

[Beejtronic]

Originally Posted by mouse goddess

It's been a while since I took genetics, but aren't all tortoiseshells considered chimeric?

This was discussed in the previous thread about this cat, but it seems to have been purged. Tortoiseshell cats are the result of random X-inactivation. "Chimera" specifically applies to two different cell lines resulting from the fusion of two separate cells, as you describe with your mouse experiments.

[Morrigan]

A long discussion on this cat (that devolved into all torties):

http://www.horsegroomingsupplies.com...ve-481569.html

Consensus is that it's just a normal tortie. Not a chimera. Quite a few torties have that line down their face, actually.