It's harder for a female to turn out orange for the same reason most torties are female - orange is X-linked. Females have two X-chromosomes, and both have to carry the orange gene. If only one does, you get a tortie or calico. Males only have the one X, so they have a higher chance of turning out orange. KD's one of those odd orange girlcats.

A fertile male tortie/calico could be a chimera - basically when two embryos fuse. Rare but possible.

In answer to some questions:  Floid's two "kids" that I saw did not exibit his intense red, but did have red in their coats with some tabby pattern.   If I can find my old issues of Maine Coon International there is a pic of him with two kittens he sired.   I believe they were Bryrhaven cats, but this was back in the late 90's.   My very first kitten in the early 60's was a short hair male marmalade mackrel tabby, but his long haired sister, adopted by our next door neighbors, was the same deep red and white.  I've never seen a female with her color since.  My current Maine man, is what was called a "pinto" in the early 1900s.  He is mostly pure white with an orange van cap and large patches of orange - no tabby marking at all.  The intensity of the red varies with his seasonal coats.  He is probably one of the last of his kind since his mom was retired soon after he was born - she was an older queen and he came from a litter of only two.  In over 20 years of breeding old blood lines, my breeder, Casa de Shea in Lincoln, CA, had never had a kitten like him and I have never seen one shown.  I'll see if I can find some pics to put up.   

Interesting article, Catbird; it's also interesting about the variation in colors found on Isis' skin. Pretty Girl is a mackerel tabby everywhere except for two ivory white toes on one hind foot, and on this foot she has one pink toe pad among the dark gray ones - all her other feet have dark gray pads.

 

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