#cat breeds

[kitticaturday]

[zooophagous]

The Governing Council of the Cat Fancy (UK) posted this to their Facebook page today:

We are very excited to announce our NEW RECOGNISED BREED - The Transylvanian! 🤩

'Indigenous to the woodlands and forests around the Carpathian Mountain areas of Romania and Hungary, the Transylvanian cat is the most recently discovered natural breed in the world.

They have fascinating features such as the reverse Karparti coat, born white, over the first 12 months the kitten grows a black, blue or sometimes a red coat whilst leaving the points of the ears, nose and paws white. Basically a reverse point! The Transylvanian is thermal too, being lighter in summer and darker in winter.

The foundation breeders led by Beverly Elian (WCF Judge) are based in Romania, Hungary, Switzerland and in the UK with Stuart & Amanda Brass.

Extensive testing has occurred on all four generations supported by Leslie Lyons and it appears the breed is robust with no genetic or hereditary issues appearing in any of the litters.'

Not seen and heard enough? You can see our newly recognised Transylvanian at the Feline Fair! Buy your tickets here - https://tinyurl.com/5dm7kp9a! 🎟️

[felinefractious]

[Image Source]

Clinical, Histopathological and Genetic Features of a Cutaneous Adnexal Polycystic Syndrome in Lykoi Cats: A Prospective Study of 10 Cases

Objectives

The Lykoi is a recently recognised feline breed with a unique coat phenotype caused by six variants of the Hairless (HR) gene. A specific severe cutaneous comedonal syndrome has been reported in this breed. The aim of the study was to carry out a clinical, histopathological and genetic characterisation of this syndrome.

Methods

Prospective data collection included clinical evaluation, skin biopsies for histopathology, trichoscopic examination of hair shafts, blood sampling for haematology and biochemistry, cutaneous swabs for bacteriological culture, and buccal swabs for DNA extraction and genotyping.

Results

In total, 11 privately owned Lykoi cats were enrolled, including those with varying degrees of skin involvement and one healthy cat. Cats were aged 1.5–7 years at the time of diagnosis. Clinical presentation was characterised by papular lesions and comedones, ranging from severe generalised forms (n = 6/10) to moderate regional forms (n = 2/10) and to mild scattered forms (n = 2/10). Histopathological lesions from skin biopsies revealed infundibular follicular cysts (n = 9/10), sebaceous gland (duct) cysts (n = 10/10) and sweat gland cysts (n = 5/10). Genetic analysis identified 5/6 described HR variants among the 10 affected Lykoi and the control Lykoi.

Conclusions and Relevance

This cutaneous syndrome shows a variable clinical severity that is not fully explained by genotype alone. The consistent presence of cysts from all three adnexal structures, even in clinically unaffected skin, supports the recognition of a novel skin condition, which we propose to name cutaneous adnexal polycystic syndrome (CAPS) in Lykoi cats. Further research is needed to elucidate its pathogenesis.

>>[Read Full Study]<<

I strongly encourage you to read the full study, it’s extremely interesting - although be warned, it does have visuals.

I’ve talked about the Lykoi breed before and I’m glad they’re finally getting more attention, I hope further research is done into CAPS.

Something I thought was interesting was how the asymptomatic Lykoi had an isolated sebaceous duct cyst, she is 3y at the time the sample was collected and the most common age of symptom onset appears to be 3.5y - 4y.

Will she still be subclinical a year from the study?

[tumblers-top-animals]

tumblrs favourite cat round 1

singapura

snowshoe cats

kitty softpaws

jaguars

Voting ended onAug 1

note: matches are randomized, if you start a fight or talk negatively about a contestant you'll be blocked. Mod is autistic, if you're making a joke use tonetags. (Ex. /j, /silly or /nsrs)

[beyondthisdarkhouse]

The most fascinating cat phenomenon I've seen moderating a cat breed forum is undeniably Indian Persian cats. It's such a complicated mix of cat genetics, geography, colonialism, and Victorian race science. I don't fully understand it all. And it's not like I have the cultural background or language skills to have delicate conversations with cat breeders in India about where their cats really come from.

But here are the facts Wikipedia can tell you:

From the 1600s to the 1800s, Europeans saw and sometimes obtained cats with very long and silky hair that were said to come from somewhere in the Levant/Middle East/Central Asia. Possibly Persia or Khorasan

Khorasan is a region divided by Iran, Afghanistan, and Turkmenistan. It seems to have some relationship with cats with long silky hair.

As the British colonized India, reports of these cats and how they were even imported into northern India from Afghanistan became more and more frequent.

In London in 1871, the Crystal Palace hosted the first known cat show.

Cats, I hasten to point out, didn't really have "breeds" the way we see them in dogs, horses, or cows. Humans didn't play a huge role in choosing which cats would breed with which in their history. It is, in fact, significantly harder to prevent cats from fucking whoever they damn well want to. Most major differences between cats before the late 19th century were caused by geographic barriers that placed natural limitations on the pool of available feline fuckbuddies. But this was a time when humans had cracked evolution and Mendelian genetics and we were breeding cows and pigs and tea roses of gargantuan size, and apparently we looked at cats and thought, "Why not them too?"

So, 1871. Cats of unparalleled regal fluffiness and an exotic origin story. This was also when Siamese cats made their public début, but the colourpoint/acromelanism gene of Southeast Asia was genuinely unique and rare in Europe. You really did need imported breeding stock for Siamese cats.

But these days we have DNA and can compare relatedness between breeds and feral cat populations, and modern pedigreed Persian cats do not show much genetic interrelatedness with cats from Central Asia, but they are very interrelated with... the British Shorthair. And feral cats of Western Europe.

So I'm not saying everyone in 1871 was out in rural Shropshire hunting farmyards and barns for the fluffiest kitten known to man to win the next year's cat show with, but like... look me in the eye and say that isn't what happened. I dare you.

Persians in the West, being one of the oldest cat breeds, have had a lot of time to develop some really stellar inbred traits like the smashed-in face beloved of the 1950s that makes it hard for them to groom themselves, breathe easily, or make their teeth match without a massive underbite. Breeders are now trying to breed away to a healthier "doll-faced" standard, but they're not winning huge popularity prizes.

Meanwhile, in India... you still have a ton of completely majestic cats descended from the ones that kicked off the Persian craze in the first place. Perhaps actually from Persia, or at least Khorasan. None of whom count as "real Persians" because they didn't get named Wiggles McSnugglebutt III by a woman in Berkshire before being exported to India.

Except you actually do have a fair number of purebred western-style Persians, except hold the Persian part of their ancestry, brought to India and sold for huge amounts of money to win Western-style cat shows.

All of which to say: What the fuck???

So every couple weeks someone from India posts their beautiful fluffy "Persian" cat to the cat breeds forum and gets completely dogpiled because they don't have a documented pedigree and a fucked-up face for their pains, and I'm left struggling in an attempt to communicate that their cat (like every cat) is special and wonderful and also cat breeds are incredibly weird.

(God, how did I end up with this gig? "You hate modern cat breeds and aren't afraid to back it up with research? Come tell people what breed their cat is multiple times a day!")

[dominiqueramseyart]

The Native Cat series

Traditional illustrations of various cat breeds. The breed’s silhouette makes up the cultural aspects based on cat’s native country.

[From left to right] Maine Coon cat - United States of America (2017)

Egyptian Mau - Egypt (2017)

Abyssinian - Ethiopia (2016)

Russian Blue - Russia (2016)

Brazilian shorthair - Brazil (2018)

Siamese cat - Thailand (2016)

Japanese Bobtail - Japan (2016)

Dragon Li cat - China (2016)

Aegean - Greece (2017)

British Shorthair - The United Kingdom (2018)

Norwegian Forest cat - Norway (2015)

[conarcoin]