Vintage picture postcard
depicting a female Manx cat with her kittens (public domain)
Long
ago, at the time of Noah and the Great Flood, the Manx cat sported a
magnificent bushy tail, of which he was inordinately proud - so much so that,
once aboard the ark, he took great delight in flaunting it in front of all of
the other animals, especially the dogs, which he teased unmercifully.
Inevitably, Noah spent quite a hectic time restraining them from inflicting
grievous bodily harm upon their feline tormentor during the ark's 40 days
afloat. When at last the ark came to rest on Mount Ararat, however, it did so
with such a lurch that Noah was momentarily distracted, which provided one of
the dogs with the perfect opportunity to take its revenge - by lunging forward
and biting off the Manx cat's flamboyant tail with savage glee. And from that
day forth, the Manx cat has been tailless.
TALES OF TAILLESSNESS
The
above is just one of many memorable legends and myths that have sprung up over
the years concerning the Isle of Man's famous feline inhabitant, and why it has
no tail.
Incidentally,
for my overseas readers, the Isle of Man is a smallish island situated in the
Irish Sea between northern England and Ireland, and although part of the
British Isles it is not a part of the United Kingdom; it has its own
parliament, language, coinage, and postage stamps - plus its tailless cats.
Another
Noah-inspired example of Manx cat myth tells of how, at the onset of the Flood,
Noah was anxiously calling out to all of the animals to come aboard the ark as
quickly as possible. Within a short time, most of the diverse multitude of
species, breeds, and varieties were safely aboard, but with typical feline
independence the Manx cat dawdled languidly until the very last moment. Only
then did he leap onto the ark - but he did not leap quickly enough. For as soon
as the cat landed aboard, Noah slammed the ark's heavy door shut - and inadvertently
trapped the desultory cat's tail in it, which snapped off like a brittle twig
and was soon washed away by the Flood.
Manx cat on an old Isle of Man picture postcard for tourists
- Douglas is the Isle of Man's capital (public domain)
A very
different but equally imaginative legend tells of how, in early days long past,
Irish soldiers on the Isle of Man would slaughter great numbers of newborn cats
here in order to cut off their tails, which they used as magical talismans for
decorating their helmets and shields. As a result, the mother cats became so
distraught by this wanton massacre of their offspring that as soon as they had
given birth, they would immediately bite off their kittens' tails themselves,
thus preventing them from being killed by the soldiers. Consequently, after
many generations of such activity, this island's cats began to be born
tailless.
This
curious account owes rather more to Lamarck than logic - because it reiterates
a long-discredited theory of heredity formulated in 1809 by French naturalist
Jean Baptiste de Lamarck, and known as the inheritance of acquired
characteristics. Lamarck postulated that physical characteristics acquired by
an individual via external (i.e. non-genetic) means (such as taillessness
caused by physical severing of the tail) could be transmitted to that
individual's offspring. Needless to say, Darwin's evolutionary studies and
Mendel's genetic researches ultimately exposed this theory as being wholly
fallacious.
Isle of Man one crown coin
depicting a Manx cat, issued in 1970 (© Raimond Spekking/Wikipedia - CC BY-SA 4.0 licence)
Among
the more recent fables and folk legends regarding the Manx cat are ones that
variously attribute its tail's absence to inattentive butchers, the sharp
wheels of horse trams, and even exceedingly close encounters on the racing
track with over-enthusiastic TT bikers!
FROM WHENCE CAME THE MANX CAT?
Other
myths have sought to explain where the Manx cat originated. According to one
such story, the Spanish Armada was carrying tailless cats aboard its vessels
when one of the galleons was wrecked near the Isle of Man. Happily, its cats
survived, and swam ashore, where they ultimately gave rise to the modern-day
tailless Manx cats. An interesting account, if true; in reality, however, there
does not appear to be any firm evidence to suggest that cats lacking tails were
native to Spain at that time.
Another
legend claims that the Manx cat's origin lies even further to the east -
allegedly, the first such cats were tailless temple cats in Tibet, which were
brought to the western world by travellers. Alternatively, according to yet
another story, tailless cats reached Europe from Japan, transported on grain
boats by the seafaring Phoenicians in order to keep in check the boats' rapidly
multiplying populations of illegal rodent stowaways.
Interestingly,
there is indeed a near-tailless breed of Japanese cat, the Japanese bobtail,
whose tail resembles that of a rabbit, and is little more than a fluffy pompom.
However, whereas the mutant allele responsible for this latter cat's reduced
tail is non-lethal homozygously (thereby enabling a pure-bred strain to be
developed), the mutant allele creating the Manx cat's taillessness is usually lethal
homozygously (i.e. only tailless cats heterozygous for the Manx allele survive
– see below). As these two cats are thus genetically dissimilar for truncated
tails, they clearly evolved independently of each other.
Ancient
Malaysian and Chinese paintings portray tailless cats, further indicating that
Manx-like specimens existed far beyond the Isle of Man in earlier ages.
Moreover, there is a peninsula and village in present-day Denmark known as
Reersø where tailless cats are quite common. No-one knows for certain where
these cats originated, but according to local legend they are the descendants
of cats that swam ashore following the shipwreck off Reersø’s coast a couple of
centuries ago of a ship that had journeyed here from the Isle of Man!
RUMPY, RUMPY RISER, STUMPY, STUBBY, AND LONGY
Genetically,
the absence or near-absence of a tail in the Manx cat is due to a highly
penetrant, dominant mutant gene allele. If present homozygously (i.e.
represented by two copies), this allele is generally lethal, inducing a number
of severe skeletal and organ defects, and such individuals are usually
spontaneously aborted before birth. Consequently, surviving Manx cats generally
possess only one copy of the tailless allele (i.e. they are heterozygous for
it).
A beautiful Manx cat called
Luna (© Lori Adams Nash)
Based
upon the tail's length in proportion to the cat’s overall size, Manx cats can
be divided into no less than five categories. Most extreme is the rumpy or
dimple rumpy, in which the tail is entirely absent. Slightly less extreme is
the rumpy riser (or, simply, riser), in which there is just the merest hint of
a tail, represented by a cartilaginous bump or one or more vestigial immobile vertebrae
hidden in the fur. The third category is the stumpy, in which a short but
recognisable and usually mobile tail is present. These are the only categories
of Manx cat that are permitted in Manx cat shows. However, there are also two
further categories. The stubby has a tail that is roughly half the total length
of an average, non-Manx domestic cat’s tail. And the longy or tailed Manx cat
has a near-complete tail.
CYMRIC
Not so
well known as the familiar short-haired Manx cat is a long-haired version known
as the cymric. This handsome breed was developed from long-haired individuals
present in litters of normal short-haired Manx cats bred in Canada during the
1960s, but apart from the length of its hair it is identical to the latter cat
form.
RABBITING ON ABOUT CABBITS
It
surely need not be said that the Manx cat's family tree does not contain any
rabbits in it. Nevertheless, this has not prevented a breathtakingly bizarre
example of contemporary folklore arising from this most ridiculous of premises.
Every
so often, the media carries reports of curious beasts, often nicknamed
'cabbits', which are soberly claimed to be hybrids between cats and rabbits!
Descriptions of these incredible crossbreeds state that they hop like rabbits,
and photographs invariably depict recognisably feline creatures but with
noticeably long hind legs and little if any tail at all.
Early photograph of a
supposed cabbit (public domain)
Remarkably,
such animals really do exist, but they are not descended from illicit liaisons
between cats and rabbits. Instead, they are nothing more than Manx cats - because
in addition to its famous tailless condition, this cat breed is also
characterised by its disproportionately lengthy hind legs, which are longer
than its front legs (and are rendered even more conspicuous by the lack or
near-absence of a tail). This means that its back slopes upwards, rising
conspicuously from its shoulders to its rump, and some individuals consequently
move with an unexpectedly rabbit-like hopping gait.
As
noted by Gerald L. Wood in his Guinness Book of Pet Records (1984), one
such specimen was owned by Val Chapman from New Mexico, USA, and was exhibited as a
bona fide cabbit in July 1977 at Los Angeles. Another specimen, reported in the
1950s from Ermelo in the Transvaal, South Africa, attracted the attention of
British zoologist Dr Maurice Burton. He learnt via Prof. J.W. Groenewald of Pretoria
University's Veterinary Dietetics Department that it was in reality a
crossbreed between a Manx cat and a Siamese cat. It had been born in Arcadia,
Pretoria, at the home of H.E. le Tendresse of the American Legation, but had
later been sent to a Mr D. Patterson at Ermelo. Like the 'rumpy riser' variety
of Manx cat, this cabbit sported only a very short stump for a tail.
Some 'cabbits' result from Manx
cat x Siamese cat matings – painting by W. Luker, 1903 (public domain)
Unfortunately
for science (and common sense), back in the mid-1800s the Manx cat's
exceedingly superficial external similarity to a rabbit was nonetheless more
than sufficient to inspire a writer called Joseph Train, from Castle Douglas in
Galloway, Scotland, to claim in his book An Historical and Statistical Account of the
Isle of Man (1845) that Manx cats were truly the products of matings
between female cats and buck rabbits. He even included in his book a somewhat
grotesque engraving of a Manx cat suitably distorted to correspond to the
likely appearance of an offspring from this most unlikely of cross-pairings.
And so it was that from an erroneous, misleading illustration and Train's
accompanying account, the incongruous myth of the cabbit bounded into
existence.
Yet
even on an island distinguished by its emblematic three-legged men, its
true-life four-horned goats (the brown-woolled Manx Loghtan), and its
world-famous tailless cats, the reality of cabbits is most definitely beyond
conception - in every sense!
Total
trivia time: Way back in 1993, the very first pub quiz team that I was a member
of was called the Manx Cats, because we were all bikers and one of the most
famous motorbike races, the TT (Tourist Trophy), takes place annually on the Isle
of Man. As a memento of our quiz team, I purchased the following Manx cat
ornaments, which I still own today:
My two Manx cats ornaments
commemorating my years as a Manx Cat quizzer (© Dr Karl Shuker)
My sincere thanks to Lori Adams Nash for very kindly permitting me to include her photograph of her beautiful Manx cat Luna in the chapter of my book Cats of Magic, Mythology, and Mystery from which this present ShukerNature blog article of mine is adapted.
Early photograph of a Manx
cat (public domain)
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