Oh, those unneutered toms

The slang word tomcat that describes certain actions of human males is rooted in the real behavior of unneutered (“whole”) male cats. Tomca...

No hairless cats

Sphynx , which has received a lot of publicity thanks to the cat Mr. Bigglesworth in the Austin Powers movies. A lot of viewers left theatre...

Their countries of origin (not!)

Siamese cats probably did come from Siam (Thailand), and Burmese came (probably) from Burma, but otherwise the geographical names of vario...

“Foreign” vs. “cobby”

Siamese : slim and lithe, the cat equivalent of what would be called a swimmer’s build in a human. The cobby body is heavier, shorter in the...

“Spontaneous mutation” breeds

mating that cat with a cat with the same odd trait, an entirely new breed results, all the offspring of which have the same odd trait. Th...

“Man-made” breeds

kittens are the new breed, Z. A “man-made” breed results from this deliberate hybridizing. Once the new breed is established, of course, ...

“Natural” breeds

Turkish Angoras and Russian Blues . They are natural because the breeds’ distinctive traits (color, body shape and the like) occurred wit...