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Somewhere on messybeast.com, I read of a few--very few-- tortoiseshell males, even a few who were claimed to be fertile. But like it says here, they're extremely rare.

I've been partial to torties ever since I rescued a beautiful black tortie kitten who had been dumped in the alley behind my apartment house in 1989. She looked as if someone had flicked random bits of paint on a black velvet background. She was green-eyed. She looked like a miniature lioness in wintertime, with her long fur.

I currently have three cats, all torties:

A 10-year-old who has some smoke coloring in her neck ruff area. She has green eyes and is more medium-haired. She has three black legs and one front paw that looks like it's been dipped in bleach.

A 6-year-old who is a red tortie... waves of sable, cream, and black. Gold eyes. She's really gorgeous and seems to know it--she's certainly got the mixture of sweet and bratty which some of us call "tortie-tude."

The youngest, about 2 years old, is tortie-and-white. Four white feet. Extremely long fur in wintertime. A splash of white on her ruff and on her belly. A splash of beige on her face, and green eyes. She has a tail that resembles a drum major's plume when carried upright.

She looks like a tortie on most of her body--red-and-black swirls. But she also has some fairly large blotches of color on her front legs and her belly, which is more characteristic of a calico. Some cats aren't so neatly categorized as either torties or calicos by their coloring; I've seen some other torties like this.