50 Fun Facts About Cat Breeds

The hairless Sphynx breed began with Prune, a kitten born bald in 1966, in which country?

Canada is where it began: Prune was born in Toronto to an ordinary black-and-white house cat. Early breeders called the cats Moonstones and Canadian Hairless before settling on Sphynx.

Which shaggy breed is the largest domestic cat that is not a wild hybrid?

Maine Coon tails are long, bushy and ringed, which fed the impossible myth that the breed is part raccoon. Another legend says it descends from pets Marie Antoinette shipped to America before her failed escape.

The dark face, ears, paws and tail of colorpoint cats come from a pigment enzyme sensitive to what?

Temperature controls the pattern: the enzyme only makes pigment where the body is coolest. Kittens are born pale all over and darken at the extremities in their first few months.

Which spotted breed did Jean Mill create by crossing house cats with the wild Asian leopard cat?

Bengal comes from the wild cat's scientific name, Prionailurus bengalensis. It is the only domestic breed with rosettes, the ringed spots worn by leopards and jaguars.

Which breed began with Blackberry, a Louisiana stray whose kittens had unusually short legs?

Munchkin breeders borrowed the name from the little people of L. Frank Baum's Oz. The short legs come from a gene so controversial that several countries ban breeding the cats.

Which owl-faced breed descends from Susie, a white barn cat found on a Tayside farm in 1961?

Scottish Fold ears bend forward because of a gene that affects cartilage throughout the body. Kittens whose ears stay upright are known as Scottish Straights.

Which large, blue-eyed breed, nicknamed the puppy cat, did Ann Baker develop in 1960s California?

Ragdoll refers to the way the cats go limp and relaxed when picked up. Baker said her founding animals were ordinary alley cats, not pedigrees.

Which breed's first documented arrival in the United States was a cat sent from Bangkok to the Hayes White House?

Siamese cats were a novelty: the Hayes cat, named Siam, is the first of the breed documented in the country. Many early imports had crossed eyes and kinked tails, traits later bred out.

Which word for a striped or swirled coat with an M on the forehead is often mistaken for a breed?

Tabby is a coat pattern, not a breed, and it turns up in pedigrees and street cats alike. It comes in four types: mackerel, classic, ticked and spotted.

Which tall, lanky breed began in 1986 with a kitten whose father was a serval, an African wild cat?

Savannah was the name of that first kitten before it became the name of the breed. Early generations can be as big as dogs, and one stood 19 inches tall to set a world record in 2016.

Which silvery grey, green-eyed breed was first shown in England as the Archangel Cat?

Russian Blue cats may have originated in the northern port of Arkhangelsk, known in English as Archangel. Sailors are believed to have carried them to Northern Europe in the 1860s.

The Japanese Bobtail, model for the maneki-neko figurine, has a tail likened to which animal's?

Rabbit is the usual comparison for the short, kinked tail, which varies from cat to cat. The lucky figurine is most often painted as a calico, the colouring the Japanese prize most in the breed.

Forebears of the American Shorthair are said to have hunted rats aboard which ship in 1620?

Mayflower cats earned their passage by guarding the stores from rodents, at sea and then in the colony. The breed was called the Domestic Shorthair until it was renamed in 1966.

Cats with pure white coats and blue eyes, in any breed, are unusually likely to be born what?

Deaf white cats have an inner ear that degenerates in the first weeks after birth. In a cat with one blue eye and one of another colour, the ear on the blue-eyed side is the one more likely to fail.

The short-legged Minuet breed of the 1990s was originally named after which European ruler?

Napoleon was chosen because the emperor was popularly believed to be short. The breed's creator, Joe Smith, had previously bred Basset Hounds, another animal built low to the ground.

Which informal word, common in the UK, describes a cat of no particular breed, as most pet cats are?

Moggy cats are the ones vets and shelters record as domestic short-haired or long-haired. Pedigree breeds are newer than most people think: over 85% have appeared since the 1930s.

In Norse legend the skogkatt, linked to the Norwegian Forest cat, is a fairy cat gifted at what?

Climbing sheer rock faces that defeated other cats was the fairy cat's talent. The modern breed is a very adept climber too, and Vikings may have brought its ancestors to Norway around AD 1000.

The Chartreux, a grey breed that legend links to Carthusian monks, comes from which country?

France counts Charles de Gaulle and the novelist Colette among famous Chartreux owners. The monk story is shaky: in 1972 the monastery's prior said its archives held no record of such cats.

Which breed with a 'ticked' coat, each hair banded in several colours, bears the old name of Ethiopia?

Abyssinian cats first shown in England had been brought from Abyssinia, hence the name. The breed may not be native there, though: it could have arrived with travellers who had stopped in Calcutta.

Which stocky, broad-faced breed is said to have inspired John Tenniel's drawing of the Cheshire Cat?

British Shorthair cats are best known in solid grey, a colour breeders call British Blue. Their calm temperament has made the breed a frequent media star.

Which long-haired pointed breed with four white 'gloves' is also called the Sacred Cat of Burma?

Birman cats were almost wiped out in World War II, when a single pair named Orloff and Xenia de Kaabaa was all that survived in Europe. Legend makes the breed the companion of temple priests.

Which glossy all-black breed did Nikki Horner of Kentucky develop to resemble a miniature panther?

Bombay was chosen as a nod to the black leopards of India. Horner began in 1958, crossing sable-brown cats with black American Shorthairs until she had the sleek coat and copper-gold eyes she wanted.

Which fluffy breed with dark points appears as Sassy in Homeward Bound and as Jinx in Meet the Parents?

Himalayan cats came from crossing a long-haired breed with a pointed one, work that began at Harvard in the 1930s. In the Homeward Bound films, Sassy was voiced by Sally Field.

A spotted breed begun in Washington State in the 1980s was first claimed to be part which wild North American cat?

Bobcat fathers were the founding legend of the Pixie-bob, but the breed is now regarded as purely domestic. Its founder, Carol Ann Brewer, gathered 23 cats from around the Cascade Range that she believed were hybrids.

Which word describes cats with extra toes, once prized as lucky by sailors and typical of the Pixie-bob?

Polydactyl cats are also called Hemingway cats, after the novelist's own collection. The trait spread along shipping routes out of Boston because sailors thought such cats brought luck.

Which US state named the calico its official cat because the colours echo its state bird, an oriole?

Maryland chose the calico in 2001 because its black, orange and white match the Baltimore oriole. Calico describes the colouring alone, so the honour belongs to no single breed.

Which tiny breed was said to descend from three Southeast Asian drain cats?

Singapura is the Malay name for Singapore, where the three founding cats supposedly lived in drains. Import papers found in 1987 showed they had been taken there from the United States first.

Which curly breed began with Kallibunker, a kitten born in England's most south-westerly county?

Cornish Rex cats have only the soft down layer of a normal coat, with no guard hairs over it. Their sleek build and galloping run earned them the nickname 'the greyhound of the cats'.

Which breed gave its name to the coat pattern of a white cat coloured only on the head and tail?

Turkish Van cats lent their name to the 'van' pattern. Cats from the Lake Van area are nicknamed swimming cats for their fascination with water, though the breed's founding pair came from elsewhere.

Which patchy-coated breed, developed in Tennessee in the 2010s, is commonly called the werewolf cat?

Lykoi comes from the Greek word for wolf, and owners call the cats' heavy moults 'wolfing out'. Over a lifetime an individual can range from fully furred to almost entirely hairless.

Which long-haired breed did Helen Smith name for the grace of an Indonesian island's dancers?

Balinese cats have no real link to Bali: the breed was developed in the United States from a long-haired mutation. One early champion, Sylvia Holland, was also an illustrator for Walt Disney Studios.

Which breed with a 'mink' coat and aquamarine eyes is named after a region of Indochina it has no link to?

Tonkinese is a suggestive name only, borrowed from the Tonkin region. The look itself caught the eye of breeders who noticed aquamarine eyes and unusually dark coats in cats imported from Malaysia.

Which spotted breed, the surprise result of a 1964 Michigan experiment, looks wild but is fully domestic?

Ocicat was coined by the breeder's daughter, who thought the first spotted kitten looked like an ocelot. That kitten, Tonga, was sold as a pet for ten dollars on condition that he be neutered.

The Chausie, a tall hybrid breed developed in the 1990s, is named after the Latin name of which wild cat?

Jungle cat is Felis chaus in Latin, which gave breeders the name Chausie. The ancient Egyptians occasionally mummified the species, as they did their domestic cats.

The Nebelung, founded by cats called Siegfried and Brunhilde, has a name meaning creature of the what?

Mist is Nebel in German, and the name also echoes the Nibelung saga that supplied the founding pair's names. Both were long-haired grey kittens born to a black shorthair called Elsa.

The Cymric, a long-haired tailless breed, takes its name from the native word for which country?

Wales is Cymru in Welsh, yet the breed is not associated with the country. Some registries do not treat the Cymric as a breed at all and list it simply as the Manx Longhair.

The Siberian is often called hypoallergenic because it is said to make less of which protein, the main cat allergen?

Fel d 1 is made largely in a cat's saliva and skin glands, and it affects about 90% of people with a cat allergy. No breed is allergen-free, and measured levels vary widely from one Siberian to the next.

Which term, also applied to pugs and bulldogs, describes the pushed-in skull of the Exotic Shorthair?

Brachycephalic comes from the Greek for short head. In cats the pushed-in face brings the nose and eyes close together, and it can obstruct the upper airway.

The Sokoke, a rare breed with a blotched coat, is named after a coastal forest in which country?

Kenya's Arabuko Sokoke forest gave the breed its name. A horse breeder, Jeni Slater, noticed the free-roaming cats nearby in 1978, though local people had long known them as khadzonzo.

Which grey breed, named after a Thai province, is traditionally given in pairs to newlyweds for luck?

Korat is the everyday Thai name for Nakhon Ratchasima province. Known as the good luck cat, the breed has a heart-shaped head and large green eyes.

Which short-tailed breed is named after a chain of islands running north-east from Japan's Hokkaido?

Kurilian Bobtail cats have been known on the islands for more than 200 years. They later became popular pets across the Soviet Union, prized above all for their skill at hunting rodents.

Among breeders of the Manx, which of these tail-length terms describes a cat with no tail at all?

Rumpy cats often have just a tuft of hair where the tail would have grown. A 'stumpy' carries a short stub of fused vertebrae, while a 'longy' has a tail of half length or more.

Which show-ring word describes the short, stocky, rounded build of breeds such as the Persian?

Cobby means short in the leg, broad in the chest and round all over. Breeds that only partly fit the description, such as the Minuet, are called semi-cobby.

Which London venue hosted the first organised cat show, staged by Harrison Weir in 1871?

Crystal Palace was the vast iron-and-glass hall first built in Hyde Park for the Great Exhibition of 1851. New York followed with a show of its own at Madison Square Garden in 1895.

Which chocolate-coloured breed, developed in the 1950s, most likely takes its name from a type of cigar?

Havana Brown cats are thought to be named for the cigar-like colour of their coat. Solid brown cats were shown in Europe as early as the 1890s, some of them under the name Swiss Mountain Cat.

Which curly breed traces back to Curly, a farm kitten born in Oregon in the early 1980s?

LaPerm cats all trace back to Curly, the kitten of a barn cat called Speedy, and are named for a coat like a shaggy perm. Curly cats bred freely on the farm for about a decade before a formal breeding programme began.

A tapered muzzle and distinctive head shape often make a Chartreux cat appear to be doing what?

Smiling is the classic Chartreux expression, a product of bone structure, not mood. The breed is also unusually quiet: many rarely meow, and some are completely mute.

Breeders describe the compact, surprisingly heavy Burmese as feeling like which object wrapped in silk?

A brick wrapped in silk is the breeders' phrase for a cat that is small but solidly muscled. The breed's original rich brown coat is called sable in the United States and plain brown in the UK.

Which breed began with Adam, a kitten born to barn cats in upstate New York in 1966?

American Wirehair cats have springy, wiry fur right down to their crinkled whiskers. The mutation behind it is dominant, and it is a different one from those behind other curly-coated breeds.

Cats of no recognised breed are eligible at many shows for a division known by which name?

Household Pet classes have no breed standard to measure against, so judges look at qualities such as temperament instead. Some entrants do have a recorded family tree all the same.