The trim-color house cats refers to all calicos... calicos are white spotted tortoiseshell cats. The "is orange or black" is a X linked gene, so you can have XoXb... and then the x chromosome inactivation kicks in and some groups of cells are activated orange and some are activated black.
But (not white) spots and variations of color get into things like the Agouti gene ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agouti_coloration_genetics ). A tabby cat (black and tan, or orange and darker orange) has no sex linked characteristics.
Spots are different.
The trim-color house cats refers to all calicos... calicos are white spotted tortoiseshell cats. The "is orange or black" is a X linked gene, so you can have XoXb... and then the x chromosome inactivation kicks in and some groups of cells are activated orange and some are activated black.
But (not white) spots and variations of color get into things like the Agouti gene ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agouti_coloration_genetics ). A tabby cat (black and tan, or orange and darker orange) has no sex linked characteristics.
For a deep dive into the genetics of Agouti and how that influences cat fur colors, http://messybeast.com/genetics-agouti-and-corin.htm
I very much appreciate the correction, thank you.