Metallic Tabby Cat

Nice photo - which has disappeared - sorry. It has a seriously metallic look. This chunky golden metallic tabby cat has eyes that are reflecting light sufficiently to cause a reflection on what seems to be a stainless steal surface surrounding the sink.

A cat's eyes have a reflective layer behind the retina which boosts the light impacting on the retina. The gets gets two bites of the cherry so to speak.

The "M" tabby mark on the forehead is no so much an "M" but lighting! This is a very special M mark. Cats are often seen in sinks curled up. Cats often like hard surfaces to sleep on. The idea of a cosy warm basket of some sort looks good to us but not always good to a cat. I think it is because cats are perpetually in full winter clothes. It must get hot on a soft surface that prevents air flow around the body.

See more on the tabby cat. The photo is by -PhotoRoberto- and despite being fully protected by copyright it is published here because this website is part of the Pictures of Cats org website and the photo is on the cat-photo-technique Flickr group and photos that are part of this group can be published on PoC under the user conditions of the group.



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A Clowder of Cats in the Shade

I couldn't resist publishing this well known photograph on this Blogger site because I have just finished a post on the main site about the word "clowder" and its origins. And this picture really is of a clowder of cats in the shade. A clowder as you might know is a group of cats in one place.

The word clowder comes from old English words such as clotter (which produced the modern word clutter) and clodder meaning a clotted mass. Well, I wouldn't quite call these cats a clotted mass, just a content group of cats seeking relief from the sun. A group of kittens in one place is called a "kindle" after the word "kendel" or "kendal" or "kyndyll". See more on the word, clowder.

The photo was taken in a cat shelter in in Richmond BC Canada.This is the 1000th post on this blog - now there is a useless piece of information.

See the original photo in large format.



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Wat Arun Cats

Photo by IMP1

The above cats are described as "Wat Arun cats" by the photographer. The photograph was taken in Thailand. What are Wat Arun cats and how many cats can you see - yes three? There is a nice symmetry or harmony in this photograph. The stone cats are  mother and offspring, I suspect. The mother is washing her paw. The daughter is watching and waiting. The live temple cat behind them is also grooming itself and in a similar pose.

Wat Arun cats are temple cats and this is a Bhuddist temple at Wat Arun in Bangkok, Thailand. The full address is: Bangkok Yai, Bangkok 10600, Thailand. The full name of the temple is Wat Arunratchawararam Ratchaworamahawihan (วัดอรุณราชวรารามราชวรมหาวิหาร) (try and pronounce that). This is where it is:


View Larger Map

The temple is a well known landmark in Bangkok and is also known as the Temple of the Dawn (as it reflects the early morning light). This website incidentally supports a group of temple cats in Phuket, Thailand through the Soi Dog Foundation. You see the donations here: Pictures of cats org donations.

What of the cats? Monks historically look after temple cats. As I understand there are many examples of temple cats.

There is a famous (well in the cat fancy the story is famous) legend about the creation of the Birman cat breed from temple cats. The Birman comes from Burma (Myanmar) where there are temple cats too.

It would seem, and I am guessing here, that the stone cat sculptures are of  temple cats at the time that the temple was built. Construction started in 1809.

Thailand was called Siam. Siam is the home of the Siamese cat, a white pointed cat. Some say the Thai cat is a more accurate representation of the original Siamese cats. The cat behind the stone cats is a moggie. This cat is actually a bicolor moggie - black and white - not a Siamese cat. The head markings are very symmetrical and they remind me of the Turkish Van, with the inverted "V" mark. Is there a connection? Quite possibly.

This page: Cat genetics includes a paragraph about the spread of domestic cat genetics throughout the world from the origins in the Mediterranean basin.

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Mackerel Tabby and Salmon

This is Emerson. He is a mackerel tabby cat. I am not sure if he is brown or grey because I think there is a slight blue or cyan cast over the picture due to the room light which is the main source of light for this photograph. As the light is blue, the brown tabby coat may have been neutralised to look grey. Not sure if I am correct. Maybe the white balance could have been adjusted? What do I know about white balance!

This photo is interesting, however. It is different from the usual cat photograph. It looks set up. The fish is salmon. Does Emerson like fish? Probably yes but not all cats like fish. My Charlie prefers Marks & Spencer roast chicken for example. He will eat fish but only as a backstop food. Cats rely heavily on smell to get an appetite for a certain type of food so even a favorite food may be just sniffed at and left if it is cold and has no smell. When Charlie leaves a bit of human food (I only give him a limit amount of it) I micowave it if it has been standing for a while to put some smell back into it. He then eats it. But it only requires about 12 seconds heating. Anymore at it might burn a cat.

The salmon is raw too. Should we feed raw or cooked food to our cat if we are giving human treats? Well, either/or is the answer but it must be limited. The fish I give to my cat is cooked but some of it is partially cooked and he eats both, no problem. If raw, though, it must be stored properly. Homemade cat food is raw mashed up human food such as chicken with added supplements. The supplements are important as they contain essential vitamins and amino acids etc. without which the cat's body functions will not work at an optimum. Omitting them will cause ill health. Home made cat food is the best potentially but care needs to be exercised. Human food most of the time if definitely incorrect as it does not contain all the required ingredients demanded by a cat.

The gene that produces the mackerel tabby pattern is Mc. Emerson has a goreeous tabby "M" on his forehead. They are not as good as that normally. There are some nice legends about how the tabby cat got the M mark. All wild cats are tabby cats in one form or another. Spotting is a form of tabby coat.

The picture is a link to the original on Flickr by the way.



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Polydactyl Maine Coon Cat Tootsie

This is Tootsie, a polydactyl Maine Coon cat that lives with an American women who lives in Atlanta, Georgia, USA. Her Flickr name is valleygirl_tka

I know Valley Girl as she is a work colleague of mine, although I have never met her. She has a website called, teh kitteh antidote/anecdote. Now that is a very fancy name for a website. It took me a little while to realise that it is a play on words, mispelled words (notice I spelled "spelled" correctly!). It is also a play on mistyped words and mixed up words. Great name for a website and the title does not start with a capital letter just to add a bit of spice. Oh, I almost forgot, Valley Girl's (VG for short) website is a subdomain of my maine (mispelled) site called, Pictures of cats.org or PoC for short. A subdomain is a domain that is separate from but part of the main domain. It is a separate website but included in statistical reports such as for Alexa traffic reports. Well I think Alexa treats it as part of PoC but there is some discussion about that.

Now what about the cat and the photo? Well, the polydactyl paw looks like a hand with a thumb! And it is about to grab the handle part of a cat toy. How many cats prefer the wrong end of a cat toy? How many cats actually sleep on that cosy bed you bought him or her? I find that if I buy something for my cat she or he doesn't use it! Humans and cats have different ideas about possessions. Cats don't recognise the concept of possessions.

Tootsie is a grey cat. In fact, to me she looks like a grey tabby smoke (the smoke effect is caused by the inhibitor gene). I am guessing wildly but I think the tabby gene, the agouti gene, the dilute gene and the smoke gene are at play all at once. And of course we have the genetic mutation that produces the additional toes. Wow, there is a lot going on. Now, I could be wrong about the genes!

Polydactylism is not a genetic mutation that carries health problems as is the case with some mutations such as the short tailed Manx or the floppy eared Scottish Fold.

Ernest Hemingway kept polydactyl cats in Florida. They are still there and they are called Hemingway cats or American Polydactyl cats. This is not a breed of cat but that is a disputed point I think. Someone might like to leave a comment on that as it might clear up this point.

See Polydactyl cats for more.



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