European Burmese

Persians have enjoyed a long reign in the cat fancy and have featured prominently in shows since 1871, the year of the first modern cat show held at London’s Crystal Palace. At this famous affair, organized by the “father of the cat fancy,” Harrison Weir, many representatives of the breed were present, starting a supremacy that continues today.

In the 370 or so years that American Shorthairs have inhabited this continent, the environment—and more recently, human-controlled breeding—have shaped them into their present form. Shorthaired domestic cats arrived in America with the Europeans. Evidence indicates that several cats may have sailed over from England aboard the Mayflower in 1620. Upon arrival, these felines became working cats in t...

While some new cat breeds have had to bang their fuzzy little heads against the cat fancy walls to gain acceptance, the American Curl has purred its way into the hearts of judges and cat lovers in an amazingly short time. The breed originated in June 1981 as a spontaneous genetic mutation in the domestic cat population. By 1986 it was recognized by two of the largest cat registries.

Like the American Curl breed, the Wirehair started as a spontaneous mutation in the domestic cat population. In 1966 breeder Joan O’Shea acquired from a small farm in upstate New York a kitten that was “just a hair different.” As a breeder of Rex breeds, O’Shea recognized that the scruffy-looking red and white bicolor male kitten might represent a new breed of cat.

The Bengal breed originated as a human-made hybrid of the Asian leopard cat and the domestic cat. The leopard cat (Felis bengalensis ) is a cat-sized inhabitant of southern Asia and is thought to be one of the closest of the modern undomesticated cat species to the ancient common ancestor of the cat family.

According to the centuries-old legend, pure white cats resided in the Buddhist temples of the country of Burma (now Myanmar), and were revered as the feline carriers of the souls of priests who had departed the mortal plain. (The term for this process is transmutation, which means to change from one form to another.) The Goddess of transmutation, Tsim-Kyan-Kse, was worshiped in these temples, repr...