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| An original Birman as I can't find a picture of the Templecat shorthaired Birman. This photo taken by Hemi Flick. |
The Templecat, a Shorthaired Birman is, surprisingly, a current breed and is an experimental breed in New Zealand. The picture above is a regular Birman cat.
The Birman has a pointed and medium to long coat (not as long as the Persian cat). Can I find a picture of a Templecat or shorthaired Birman? Afraid not, well not 
quite.
quite. I think the small picture on the right here is a Templecat. This cat looks like a Birman and has short hair. However, photographs of this cat are few and far between and although the Templecat Shorthaired Birman is current it cannot be that active, it seems. Update: I have checked for a photo on Sept 9th, 2021, many years after I wrote this page and there are no photos of this breed. Not sure if it exists :) . Please comment if you know better.
The breed was created by mating a cinnamon spotted tabby cat, an Oriental cat, to the Birman. The Oriental shorthair cat is a fine boned elegant cat that is essentially a Modern Siamese cat with a wider range of coat types (see the picture below). On a simplistic level, I am surprised that a Birman was crossed with such a fine bone and one could say, gangly cat.
The Birman is quite a solid cat. The tabby coat is the classic wild cat coat (see Scottish Wildcat), providing the best camouflage (see cat coats tabby for a full description plus the best photographs).
See this page for cat coats dilution, which involves the cinnamon color.
Templecat Shorthaired Birman - Photo of Templecat from the National Best of Breeds Page 2005 of Catzinc. I don't know the cattery but the owner breeders are Lee Williams & Amanda Stokes. If you want a link please tell and you'll get one and more.
Hi,
ReplyDeleteYou mentioned it being near impossible to find pictures of a short-haired birman cat.. I was also thinking that.
The reason being one of my cats, Vocal Cat, seems to be one.
She definately has the birman fur pattern; but also has short hair. Here's a picture, though not the greatest photo quality : http://i169.photobucket.com/albums/u216/Twistedmethoddan/vocalcat.jpg
I'm not sure whether she is some cross-breed or not; we live in france and the cat was given to me by a friend; as she had just turned up at their place one day and didn't get along with their cat, so nobody knows where she originally came from...
She's certainly most like a birman, I'd be surprised if she's anything else; though the short hair seems a little unusual. I like her how she is though :)
Dan