Poodle Cat |
According to Yahoo Shine, the story starts back in 1987 when a feral cat in Montana gave birth to a litter of five kittens, but one was the black sheep of the bunch because of her looks.
It was a female kitten who had thick curly hair, which is something that breeders had never seen before. Because she was so distinct from the rest, she caught the eye of Persian breeder Jeri Newman. Newman became the new owner of the kitten, naming her "Miss DePesto." He named the cat after the curly-haired character in the television show "Moonlighting."
That was 25 years ago and nine generations since the first curly furred cat, or Miss DePesto was discovered. Today researchers at the University of Veterinary Medicine Vienna have confirmed that these Poodle Cat felines are a genetically distinct breed.
The interest in a Poodle Cat this week stems from a new study that explains exactly what constitutes a Poodle Cat or a Selkirk Rex among the other feline breeds. The published study on the Selkirk Rex from scientists in Vienna, Austria unlocked the mystery of how a Poodle Cat came to be.
The study, titled “Selkirk Rex: morphological and genetic characterization of a new cat breed,” was done by the Institute of Animal Breeding and Genetics’ Department for Biomedical Sciences at the University of Veterinary Medicine Vienna in Vienna, Austria. Here is their findings:
“Rexoid, curly hair mutations have been selected to develop new domestic cat breeds. The Selkirk Rex [or poodle cat] is the most recently established curly-coated cat breed originating from a spontaneous mutation that was discovered in the United States in 1987. Unlike the earlier and well-established Cornish and Devon Rex breeds with curly-coat mutations, the Selkirk Rex mutation is suggested as autosomal dominant and has a different curl phenotype.”