Let’s see your pretty cat, please. You can upload a picture here.
All cats are equal but some cats, from a human perspective, are prettier than others. I think we know what a pretty cat looks like. I don’t think I need to explain or describe the features. I chose the Helmi photo above as an example. “Pretty cats” is a human concept. We should not forget it.
What makes a cat pretty? For me it is in the face. Certain facial features = pretty for me and it usual means a girly appearance. For other people it is about the whole cat including the coat. A really nice calico coat is pretty for example. An all white coat can also be pretty. Black is harder to be pretty but a black cat with a pretty face is pretty in my opinion.
Can you recognise a female cat? Can you differentiate between a male and female cat? Generally, I can. Or, I believe I can but the difference is not always clear cut. Most pretty cats will be female cats.
Some female cats have “pretty” written all over their face.
If you know of a pretty cat or live with a pretty cat, please upload a picture in a comment. You can see the upload button just below the comment box.
I’m sure that’s the way they see it. Any way is a good way so long as it’s not the truth.
Notice the weird TukV4 at the top of the tree with 4 branches without any explanation. This must consist of the type A Van of the cat fancy with European origins, the other 3 are my samples. One branch is the Ankara Zoo type Angora, the other 2 the same, but wrongly identified as a mix of European and American breeds which are not found in Turkey or Cyprus. They are obviously a laboratory mix up with the American Turkish Van. They were reported as identical to Ankara Zoo cats in the later 2012 Study, except for one which had mysteriously morphed into a pure-bred fake Angora despite his kitten being 88.76% Ankara Zoo and grandmother coming from the Zoo. With this kind of UC Davis science we can change lead into gold and donkeys into flying elephants.
To summarize: the American cat fancy screwed up big time but from their perspective they “refined” the breed and did wonderful work. I don’t think the cat fancy are really concerned with the finer points of origins, history, genetics and the purity of a cat breed. They are normally more interested in doing what suits them.
Hi Michael. Where they put their foot in it is with their own description of natural breeds stating where they originated and must prove so in order to be registered. Concoctions and out-crossing hardly matter with made-up breeds, but Vans and Angoras are not made-up breeds. However in reality they are the result of massive out-crossing which violates their own prohibition on that. To get over this little problem their good friend Leslie Lyons cooks up a large number of Turkish street cats for the 2012 Turkish Cat Genetics Study which conveniently show identical markers to the cat fancy Vans and Angoras. The tricky part is explaining why these same samples were shown in the 2007″Rise of Cat Breeds” as being UNRELATED to cat fancy Vans and Angoras. Her own phylogenetic tree in the Tufts Canine and Feline Conference shows they are related to American and British breeds, not to Turkish random-bred cats. She doesn’t have even enough brains to make up a good story that stands up to scrutiny.
Wow, what a street cat. Love that cat by the way.
I think it is about Turkey having domestic cats and that is that. The cats have a certain appearance. If one ignores all the “noise” surrounding the Turkish Angora and Van, in the end, you are left with cats living in Turkey. Moggies. Nice looking and specific to the area visually and genetically but that is the end of the discussion. The Angora and Van element, on the ground, in Turkey, overlaps. The distinction between the two has been artificially created by breeders.
Most of the cat fancy stuff about these breeds is made up and created by the cat associations for their benefit.
Hi Michael. It depends which cats you are referring to. There is no relationship between the cat fancy Angoras and Vans and the genuine article in Turkey except in a minor way. The cat fancy has made up 2 fake breeds from non-Turkish cats of British and American origins. They added Siamese to produce an elegant cat with big close-set upright ears for the fake Angora. They arrogantly call this product a pure-bred pedigree Turkish Angora even though it doesn’t resemble the original in the slightest way. Why they would want to create a fake but make it look entirely different from the original is beyond me. It’s about as sensible as making a fake Rolex but one that looks like a Timex. Due to muddled studies and lack of mental clarity there is not much clear evidence for or against saying that the Turkish Angora and Turkish Van in Turkey are different breeds. There are samples of cat fancy Turkish vans with relatives from Turkey which even after several generation of breeding to other cat fancy Vans still show a weak trace genetic marker for Ankara Zoo Angoras. There are samples of Van patterned cats from Marmaris which are 80-90% Turkish Angoras (Ankara kedisi). The same minor trace markers are found in cat fancy “Angoras”.
This suggests that Van and Angora in Turkey are the same breed. The Turks have not yet progressed to the point of recognising that their coloured SLH’d street cats are also Turkish Angoras, despite knowing that the pure-whites ones also come from the street. They use superficial and changeable eye and fur colour to determine a breed which is nonsense. See the photo of a street cat in Cappadocia, Turkey