Manx
Cat
History
There
are a number of mythical tales surrounding
the origins of the Manx, such as that Noah
cut off its tail with the door of the Ark
as the rain began to fall. In actuality,
Manx cats originated on the Isle of Man,
off the coast of Great Britain, among a population
of cats whose common ancestry sprang from
the same roots as the British Shorthair.
A spontaneous mutation occurred at some point
several hundred years ago, which created
kittens born without the vertebrae that form
the tail of normal cats. With the passage
of centuries and due to the isolation of
the cats from outside breeding, the taillessness
eventually became a common characteristic
among the Isle of Man cats, because the mutated
gene is a dominant trait.
The
original Isle of Man Manx was a rangier cat
than the standard used today, but the basics
were there--deep flanks, long back legs,
sturdy body. Through careful, deliberate
breeding programs, the size of the cat has
increased, and the short-backed, broad-chested
and stocky cat that we see now became the
desired type.
Many
stories of the origin of the Manx are found in
cat and mythology books. In many of these tales
the Manx are descended from ship's cats who were
shipwrecked on the Isle of Man when their ships
were sunk off the coast. A commonly told story
is the legend from the early 1600s of two ships
from the Spanish Armada that were sunk off Spanish
Point near Port Erin. The Isle of Man was the
refuge for the tailless cats from these two ships.
Another legend has it that the cat came from
a ship wrecked in 1806 off Jurby Point, while
another says it was a Baltic ship wrecked off
Castle Rushen and Calf Island.
Early
speculation considered the Annamite cats
to be the beginning of the Manx, these cats
having short tails. They were introduced
into Burma. Others felt the Manx may be descended
from Siam and Malaya. The Malaya Archipelago
cats have kinked, knotted and short tails.
The
Welsh also lay claim to the Manx in their
legends and the people considered them sacred
animals in early times.
British
folklore has it that mom cats bit off their
kittens' tails to keep humans from snatching
them away.
Stumpy
tailed cats in New Guinea sometimes get their
tails docked by their owners. If a cat is
stolen the tail is buried with certain spells
to bring misfortune on the thief.
The
truth is that short-tailed and tailless cat
are seen the world over, the result of a
genetic mutation. Japanese Bobtails have
short kinked tails and a less stocky body
than the Manx. Other breeds of cats occasionally
produce a kitten with a missing tail. The
Manx, however, is the only cat that is bred
to be tailless. |
