Cat breed · North America
The Somali cat is a pedigree breed of domestic cat. It is genetically similar to the Abyssinian cat. Due to inheriting two copies of the recessive gene for long hair, they have a characteristic luscious coat, unlike their cousin the Abyssinian.
Appearance: Somalis are recognised for their energetic and social nature. Their appearance with sleek bodies, long tails, and large pointed ears have earned them the nickname of "Fox Cat". Their ticked coats contain between four and twenty colours on each hair are very fine in texture making their coats softer to the touch than those of other cat breeds. The cat itself is medium-large in size.
Health: The Somali is one of the more commonly affected breeds for pyruvate kinase deficiency. An autosomal recessive mutation of the PKLR gene is responsible for the condition in the breed.
Somalis may also have hereditary retinal degeneration due to a mutation in the rdAc allele. This mutation is also seen in Abyssinians, Siamese cats, and other related breeds.
History: In the 1940s, a British breeder named Janet Robertson exported some Abyssinian kittens to Australia, New Zealand and North America. Descendants of these cats occasionally produced kittens with long or fuzzy coats. In 1963, Mary Mailing, a breeder from Canada, entered one into a local pet show. Ken McGill, the show's judge, asked for one for breeding purposes.
The first known long-haired Abyssinian, named 'Raby Chuffa of Selene', appeared in North America in 1953. Breeders assume that the long-haired gene was passed down through his ancestry. Most breeders were appalled by the sudden difference in appearance in their litters and refused to mention them. However, some breeders were intrigued and continued to breed the long-haired Abyssinian. At first, other Abyssinian breeders looked down upon the new development of the Somali and refused to associate them with the Abyssinian. They worked hard to keep the long-haired gene out of their own cats.
An Abyssinian breeder from the US, Evelyn Mague, also received longhairs from her cats, which she named "Somalis". Mague put out a call for other cats to breed with her own long-haired Abyssinians and found the many other breeders internationally that had been breeding long-haired Abyssinians for several years already. Don Richings, another Canadian breeder, used kittens from McGill, and began to work with Mague. The first Somali recognised as such by a fancier organisation was Mayling Tutsuta, one of McGill's cats.
