Cats

In this topic we are going to look at:

• Cat breeds
• Cat coat colours
• Cat coat types

Cats first became domesticated around 10,000 to 12,000 years ago in the Fertile Crescent (modern-day Iraq, Israel, Jordan, Lebanon, Palestine, and Syria) and then into ancient Egypt, where cats were highly valued culturally.  

So what do we mean by domestication? Wild cats are afraid of humans and will avoid us or attack us if they feel threatened. Domestic cats have genetic traits that make them more likely to be comfortable with interacting with humans. Domestication is a process where the wild traits of an animal are bred out in favour of traits that make them more likely to be comfortable around human beings. This was probably accidental at first, but then became something that humans did by deliberately breeding animals with the desirable traits to ensure that their off-spring also had the same traits.  

All domestic cats came from the wild cat Felis silvestris lybica.

Felis silvestris lybica	Domestic cat

You can easily see the similarity of Felis silvestris lybica to domestic cats, especially in the coat colouring and patterns between Felis sylvestris lybica and the coats of domestic ‘tabby’ cats. The ‘tabby’ pattern is closest to the original pattern of coat – but more about this soon.

Form and Function

Wild cats are sometimes thought of as the most effective animal predator in the world despite their small size. Domestic cats retain most of the killer instincts of their wild ancestors. The design of a cat’s body helps with its function as a predator. All domestic cats have these features:

• Their eyes are designed for seeing at night because their main prey types are crepuscular or nocturnal.
• Upright ears that can swivel 180 degrees and are particularly sensitive to high frequency sounds (for listening for prey animals that squeak).
• A better sense of smell than humans but not as good as dogs (dogs have long snouts, while cat snouts are short and blunt).
• Strong, muscular, very flexible bodies with a large brain compared to body size, can jump very high due to leg muscles.
• Teeth designed for meat eating – no grinding molars.
• Retractable claws for hunting and climbing.
• Long tails for balance and agility.
• Walk on their toes for silence when hunting.
• Can bristle hair to make themselves look bigger and scarier to larger animals.
• Whiskers that help hunting at night – they help them navigate small dark spaces.
• A very flexible spine for jumping, climbing and twisting – spinal bones are held together by muscles instead of ligaments.
• A very flexible shoulder blade that means their front legs can rotate allowing the cat to change direction quickly.

There’s a lot of debate about exactly how many breeds of cats there are. Different cat breeding organisations have different ways of distinguishing cat breeds, with some organisations recognising 45 and others upwards of 70 breeds.

Some examples:

• Lists 53 breeds: Cat Breeds | Purina
• Lists 57 breeds: Cat Breeds & Types | Petfinder
• Lists 48 breeds: Browse Cat Breeds | Breed Library by Basepaws
• Lists 53 breeds: New Zealand Cat Fancy

Breeds are usually described according to:

• Size, shape and bone structure
• Personality/character
• Coat type and colour

Main Coone Large, solid and heavy. Playful, gentle, affectionate. Semi-long coat, waterproof fur, neck ruff and bushy tail. Coats come in a variety of colours. Chirps rather than meows.	Siamese Medium size, triangle-shaped head, blue eyes, large ears, light, trim, athletic body with long legs and long tail. Energetic, intelligent, demanding, sociable and affectionate. Short-haired, cream coloured coat with darker haired facial masks, ears, tails and paws. Can be vocal and noisy.

There are several general body types in cat breeds:

• Cobby types are compact, have deep chests and broad shoulders and hips with a large round head and limbs and tails that are often on the shorter size.
• Svelte types are long, slim and flexible with long tails and a narrow triangle shaped head (see the Siamese above).
• Moderate body types have a mix features that fall in between cobby and svelte.
• Substantial body types are larger and more solid than all other cats (see the Main Coon above) with a rectangular body shape.

Groups of Breeds

A new breed usually comes about because of human selection – the deliberate mating of two animals in the hope of achieving a new physical appearance, or an improvement of an existing feature or features. This means that some breeds of cats are more closely related than other breeds.

Genetic profiling of domestic cats (Basepaws, 2024) suggests that there are four (4) groups of cat breeds:

• Eastern
• Western
• Exotic
• Persian

Some examples are listed in the table:

Genetic profiling of cats is a very new field, and so far there have only been a few studies that have been done. Another way that groups are identified is by cat breeding organisations and associations. These groups often have two focus points:

• Breeding services to ensure that specific breeds remain genetically healthy (avoiding in-breeding).
• Cat show competitions.

Different countries will have different groupings. In New Zealand, the group Catz Incorporated (Breed Groups | Catz Incorporated) recognises the following cat groups:

• Asian
• British
• Forest and Mountain
• Lilliputian
• Persian
• Persian Hybrid
• Patterned
• Rex
• Oriental
• Siamese
• Semi-Longhair
• Miscellaneous 1
• Miscellaneous 2

The purpose of these groupings is so that cats with similar features and characteristics can easily be compared with each other. This makes judging in cat show competitions fairer, as the criterion for judging is easy to understand.

Other cat breeders organisations will have different groupings and different criteria for each grouping. Here’s a few other examples from New Zealand and Australia:

• New Zealand Cat Fancy
• Breed Standards of ACF

What Breed is my Cat?

Animal breeding organisations often use terms like ‘pedigree’, and ‘pure-bred.’ According to pd.com.au (Pedigree vs Purebred: What’s the Difference?), a pure-bred animal is an animal whose parents are the same breed. For example, a kitten with a Birman mum and a Birman dad is a pure-bred Birman. The term ‘pedigree’ is used when the family tree of the animal has been recorded by breeders through multiple generations. The Birman kitten might be classed as ‘pedigree’ if records of its ancestry (great-grandparents etc) have been kept, particularly if its ancestors were also only Birman cats and not any other breeds.

Unless you paid a lot of money to a cat breeder, it’s unlikely that your pet cat is any particular breed. Instead, your cat would be referred to by terms such as:

• Domestic shorthair (on the left below)
• Domestic longhair (on the right below)
• Moggy (informal)

This brings us to our next subject: coat types. This is useful for understanding because coat types are one of the most obvious ways of describing differences between cats, especially when the cat does not belong to a breed.

When we talk about coat types there are four elements that are important to know: pattern, length, texture and colour. We’ll discuss colour soon, but first let’s look at the other three elements.

Coat Patterns in Cats

There are six recognised patterns in cat coats, some of which have variations:

Activity

Use the arrows to click through and see examples of each coat pattern type, including some of the variations.

Coat Length and Texture in Cats

Length and texture of cat fur are interrelated so we will look at them together. There are four (4) categories:

• Short hair: less than 4 cm long
• Long hair: between 5 cm and 12 cm long
• Curly hair: from loose waves to tight curls
• Hairless: have very fine short hair, like the skin on a peach, which is called ‘vellus’.

Fur actually comes in five (5) different types of hair strands which form layers on the cat’s body:

• Down hair – short, fine hair packed close to the body which keeps the cat warm.
• Awn hair – longer, thicker hair in the middle layer which protects the down hair and also keeps the cat warm.
• Guard hair – longer, thicker hair in the outer layer which is waterproof and keeps the cat dry.
• Vibrissae – also known as whiskers, these long thick hairs are very sensitive and help the cat to know if it can fit in a small space or move around in dark spaces.
• Vellus hair- very fine hair only found in hairless cat breeds.

Note - not all cats have all of the types of strands.

Take a peek at some examples of curly haired and hairless cats. Use the arrows to move between pictures.

The two primary colours of cat fur are black and red (orange), and all other colours seen in cats are variations of these two colours. Variations are known as a ‘dilute’ colour. The only exception is white, which occurs when a specific gene masks the other genes that determine coat colour, resulting in a colourless hair that appears white. All cats with red-based fur have the tabby pattern.

Black Dilutes

• Blue (darker gray)
• Lavender/lilac (lighter gray)
• Cinnamon (reddish brown)
• Fawn (light reddish brown)
• Chocolate (brown)

Red Dilutes

• Cream (very light red)

Shades

Individual hair shafts are not always a uniform colour. This is known as shading. In other cases, the layers of hair on a cat’s body can be different colours, known as smoked.

• Smoked (top hair is dark, undercoat is light)
• Shaded (half of the hair length is light, the other half is dark)
• Chinchilla (the top 1/8th of the hair length is shaded, and the rest is white)

Activity

Type the coat colour shown in each picture in the spaces provided. You can use lower or upper case, but spelling needs to be correct. Each colour is only included once. 

Case Study

Ohoka Cinnalord Lightning Strike

Aroha has taken a day off work to help her aunt and uncle prepare their Ocicat ‘Ohoka Cinnalord Lightening Strike’ for a show. They have been breeding and showing ocicats since 1997. All of their show cats have ‘Ohoka’ as part of their names as that is their registered cattery name based in Ohoka in Canterbury. Her aunt Mere is explaining why they hope ‘Strike’ will be a winning show cat.

Aroha: What am I helping out with this morning?

Mere: We need to check Strike carefully for fleas and mites, clean his ears and teeth, trim his nails, give him a bath, then groom him. He knows the routine, but he’s playful and strong and I can use the extra help.

Aroha: What is it about Strike that you think makes him a potential winner?

Mere: Well, his father Cinnalord Lightning Bolt, won Best in Show three years running, and his grandmother Cinnalolly Candy was also a winner, so he has the pedigree for it. Strike might be a bit young, and this is his first year, so we don’t expect a top prize just yet. Bolt didn’t win anything until his third year showing.

Aroha: What will the judges be looking for?

Mere: A mix of things like personality and health, but also matching to the criterion for the division that we are entering him in.

Aroha: What division is that?

Mere: Champion! Strike is a great example of a pure bred ocicat. The bullseye pattern on his coat is very even, with each spot nicely spaced. The tabby ‘M’ is very clear on the top of his head. Like all our Cinnalord and Cinnalolly cats, he’s a lovely rich cinnamon colour that stands out. His coat is very soft and sleek and gets a good shine after he’s been shampooed and brushed. He’s on the larger size for ocicats, but that makes him more noticeable. The judges will look at the shape of his head and ears, which in ocicats is usually wedge-shaped with large triangle ears. An oci with a smaller ear or irregular head is less likely to win, especially if the judges prefer a traditional looking cat. Strike is pretty athletic, and we have kept him on a good diet, so I think he has the physical look that judges really go for. But the main thing is his personality. He’s a real extrovert and very charming, but he’s not vocal and copes with being around lots of people and noise without becoming stressed. He’s a bit unreliable if you get him out of his cage and handle him, so I hope he doesn’t get too playful or take off in the middle of judging. We’ll have to keep working on his training for that.

Activity

Let’s practice some of the terminology on cat breeds that we have just covered. Some cat shows have a division called ‘Companion Cat’, that even a moggy can be entered into.

Choose a cat that you know (your cat, or one from a neighbour, friend or family member) take a picture of it and explain in a forum post why it might make a good entry into the Companion Cat category in a cat show. In your explanation you should describe its:

• Body shape, size and condition
• Coat pattern, type and colour
• Personality

You can use Aroha’s conversation with her aunt Mere as a guide.

Post your response on the Companion Cat category forum thread.

Activity

Now that you have completed your entry into the cat show, let’s do some judging! Read your classmates’ posts and decide who you will award the winner of the ‘Companion Cat’ division. Reply to their forum post saying why you have judged their cat the winner. This is another great opportunity to put your learning for this topic into practice. Just one thing - you can’t choose your own entry! You can access the forum by clinking the link in the previous forum activity.

Summary

We have covered huinga kupu/vocabulary that will help you identify and talk about cats according to their:

• Coat types
• Coat colours
• Coat patterns
• Breed related personalities

Next up is dogs. Kia haere tonu tātou – let’s continue.