Cat breed · Isle of Man
The Manx cat (, in earlier times often spelled Manks) is a breed of domestic cat (Felis catus) originating on the Isle of Man, with a mutation that shortens the tail. Many Manx have a small stub of a tail, but Manx cats are best known as being entirely tailless; this is the most distinguishing characteristic of the breed, along with elongated hind legs and a rounded head. Manx cats come in all coat colours and patterns, though all-white specimens are rare, and the coat range of the original stock was more limited. Long-haired variants are sometimes considered a separate breed, the Cymric cat.
Manx are prized as skilled hunters, and thus have often been sought by farmers with rodent problems, and been a preferred ship's cat breed. They are said to be social, tame and active. Two local terms for the cats on their home island are stubbin (those with a short tail) and rumpy (those with no tail). Manx have been exhibited in cat shows since the 1800s, with the first known breed standard published in 1903.
Behaviour: Fanciers often describe the Manx as being doglike in behaviour.
These beliefs about the Manx's behaviour were not described in the past.
Lane's early and experienced account of the temperament of this "variety, which is quaint and interesting" is simply that they were "docile, good-tempered and sociable", and that a prize specimen should be "an alert, active animal of much power and energetic character."
Manx are prized as hunters, and were thus long in demand for working roles like farm cat (Manx: lughder or lugher 'mouser', from lugh 'mouse') and ship's cat (screeberagh or screeberey loosely 'scratcher, scratchy-one', from screebagh or screebey 'scratching, scratchy, scraping').
Coat: Manx cats exhibit two coat lengths. Short- or long-haired, all Manx have a thick, double-layered coat. The colour and pattern ranges exhibited should conform to the standards for that type of coat in non-Manx.
The more common short-haired Manx – the original breed – has a coat with a dense, soft, under layer and a longer, coarse outer layer with guard hairs. The overall appearance of the coat is fine, short and lying close to the skin, versus fluffy or voluminous.
The long-haired Manx, known to some cat registries as the Cymric, has a silky-textured double coat of medium length, with "breeches" (i.e. a distinct jump in fur length at the hocks giving the appearance of old-fashioned, baggy, knee-length pants ) belly ruff and neck ruff, tufts of fur between the toes and full "ear furnishings" (hairs in ears). The CFA considers the Cymric to be a variety of Manx and judges it in the short-hair division even though it is long-haired, while The International Cat Association (TICA) judges it in the long-hair division as a distinct Cymric breed. The long-haired variety is of comparatively recent development. Lane wrote in 1903 that the Manx "to the best of my knowledge, information and belief, does not include any long-haired specimens", in his detailed chapter on the breed.
Regardless of coat length, the colours and coat patterns occurring in the breed today run the gamut of virtually all breeds due to extensive cross-breeding, though not all registries may accept all coats as qualifying for breeding or show. The most common coats are tabby, tortoiseshell, calico and solid colours. Widely divergent Manx specimens, including even a colour-point, blue-eyed, long-haired variant of evident Himalayan ancestry, have been celebrated on Isle of Man postage stamps since the 1980s, and recent publications often show marbled and spotted varieties. The original insular stock, however, were of less widespread variation. Lane, having "seen a great many of them" wrote of Manx cats that "[i]t is curious that the colours in this variety seem somewhat limited" and that the breed "does not comprise all the colours usually associated with other short-haired varieties". He reported only very common orange, common orange and white, common cream tabby, uncommon tortoiseshell, and very rare all-white specimens in 1903. Calico and point-coloured are notably absent from this list, as are even today's common colourful tabbies; overall, coat colours of the original insular stock around 1900 were phaeomelanin-dominated, with a marked presence of bicolour alleles, and with eumelanin and/or all-white colouration possibly only due to modern introductions. However, writing in England only five years later, Barton suggested that "the Manx may be of any colour, but probably orange is the most frequently met with."
Health And Genetics: The Manx taillessness gene is dominant and highly penetrant; kittens from two Manx parents are generally born without any tail. Being homozygous for (having two copies of) the gene is usually lethal in utero, resulting in miscarriage. Thus, tailless cats can carry only one copy of the gene. Because of the danger of having two copies of the taillessness gene, breeders avoid breeding two entirely tailless Manx cats together. Because neither parent carries the tailless allele, a fully tailed Manx bred to another fully tailed Manx results in all fully tailed kittens.
Some partial tails are prone to a form of arthritis that causes the cat severe pain, and in rare cases Manx-bred kittens are born with kinked short tails because of incomplete growth of the tail during development. Stumpy to long tails are sometimes docked at birth as a preventative measure.
"Manx syndrome" or "Manxness" is a colloquial name given to the condition which results when the tailless gene shortens the spine too much. It can seriously damage the spinal cord and the nerves, causing a form of spina bifida, as well as problems with the bowels, bladder, and digestion. Very small bladders are indicative of the disease, and it is often difficult to diagnose. Death can occur quite suddenly, and some live for only 3–4 years; the oldest recorded was a female cat named Pharrah at seven years when affected with the disease. In one report, it was shown to affect about 30% of Manx cats studied, but nearly all of those cases were rumpies, which exhibit the most extreme phenotype. Feline expert Roger Tabor has stated: "Only the fact that the Manx is a historic breed stops us being as critical of this dangerous gene as of other more recent selected abnormalities."
The breed is also predisposed to rump fold intertrigo, and to corneal dystrophy. In a review of over 5,000 cases of urate urolithiasis the Manx was noticeably under-represented, with an odds ratio of 0.35.
Some tailless cats such as the Manx cats may develop megacolon, which is a recurring condition causing constipation that can be life-threatening to the cat if not properly monitored. It is a condition in which, due to absence of a tail, the smooth muscle that normally contracts to push stools toward the rectum loses its ability to do so.
Origin And Folklore: Tailless cats, then called stubbin (apparently both singular and plural) in colloquial Manx language, were known by the early 19th century as cats from the Isle of Man, hence the name, where they remain a substantial but declining percentage of the local cat population. Some folklore stories claim that tailless domestic cats were brought there by sea. They are descended from mainland stock of obscure origin. Like all house cats, including nearby British and Irish populations, they are ultimately descended from the African wildcat (Felis lybica) and not from native European wildcats (Felis silvestris), of which the island has long been devoid.
The dominant trait of taillessness arises from a spontaneous mutation, the Manx taillessness gene, that eventually became common on the island because of the limited genetic diversity of island biogeography (an example of the founder effect and, at the sub-specific level, of the species-area curve).
In the Manx language, the modern name of the breed is kayt Manninagh, literally 'cat of Mann' (plural kiyt or kit), or kayt cuttagh lit. 'bob-tailed cat'. Kayt, used as both a masculine and feminine noun, is also encountered as cayt, and depending on the exact construction, it may be lenited as chayt or gayt. The diminutive word is pishin or pishyn, 'kitten' (with various plurals). Manx itself was often spelled Manks in English well into the late 1800s.
