X-inactivation
The mammalian X-chromosome contains significantly more genetic information than the Y-chromosome. This gene dosage is controlled for in females through a process called X-inactivation where one of the X-chromosomes is shut down and highly condensed into a Barr body. Inactivation of the X-chromosome occurs in a stochastic manner that results in females being cellular mosaics where a group of cells have inactivated the paternal X-chromosome and other patches of cells have inactivated the maternal X-chromosome. The most striking example of mosaicism is the calico cat. A calico cat (tortoise shell cat) is always a female. One of the genes that encodes coat color in cats resides on the X-chromosome and exist as either orange or black alleles. Due to the stochastic inactivation, the patterning of orange and black fur is a distinctive quality of calicos.