This is a nice picture of three beautifully spotted, street cats of Cyprus. Their coats are very high quality spotted tabby. They are a “a spotted male and some of his family”. The three are, no doubt, looking for food from the person in the chair that I have covered with the map.
Despite being community cats, DNA tests establish that they are:
78% Turkish Ankara kedisi, and 28% mixed bag which UC Davis strangely calls Turkish Van (Harvey Harrison).
“Turkish Ankara kedisi” is the Turkish Angora.
These are the real spotted cats, descendants of the African/Asian Wildcat as far as I am concerned (Harvey can correct me if I am wrong). Harvey makes the point that there is no need to breed wild cat hybrids when these cats are available.
It is interesting that genetically they are Turkish Angoras. People think of the Turkish Angora as a white cat with odd coloured eyes, one blue and one yellow, that looks a but like the traditional Persian.
At the present time the earliest known domestic cat was one unearthed from a grave with his human companion in Cyrus dated at about 9,500 years ago.
As we know that the domestic cat is a domesticated African/Asian Wildcat, I think it is fair to guess that the cats in the picture are quite possibly descendants of the wildcat and similar to the first domestic cats. They are similar to the Egyptian Mau street cats in Egypt – see below. The Eyptian Mau is said to be the descendant of the first domesticated African Wildcats and the only naturally spotted cats (whatever that means!).
I’d like to mention that in Suffolk and Norfolk, England in the 1880s and earlier (in fact, going back to at least the late 1600s) tabby cats were called Cyprus cats. The name was based on a cloth called “Cyprus” made of silk and hair with wavy lines that came from Cyprus. I wonder if the cloth was inspired by the tabby cats of Cyprus. It seems Cyprus is a important place in the cat world.
Hi Valley Girl. Yes these are about the same size as the European and US domestic cats on average , but much bigger ones can be found. It depends on how well fed they are and maybe the genes of certain individuals cats. This is what led to the “new” Cyprus Aphrodite Giant breed. Breeders of the Aphrodite refuse to acknowledge that their new breed is a duplicate of the traditional Turkish Angora. This is just one the ridiculous consequences of the small elegant fake Turkish Angora being fraudulently proclaimed as the genuine Angora. Males up to 9 kg can be found but the size of the bigger ones is mote likely to be 6-7 kg. Spotted coats may be more frequent here on account of being closer to, or actually being, where domestication of the original spotted wildcats took place.
The stereotypical image of the Angora cats which should be white cat with blue/odd-eyes – is very inaccurate. The term ”The Angora” only refers to the longhair Anatolian cats. Actually this is the same cat like a shorthair ones, this is we, people, want to separate them according to the length of fur…
The Turkish Angora DNA is the Anatolian random bred cats DNA. But since nobody has ever heard a breed like ”Anatolian cats” there is nothing wrong to describe them all as ”Angoras” ๐
So spotted shorthair cats from Turkey and Cyprus well, are the same cats like the Angoras ๐
The Turkish Van? It’s probably a mix of something like Harvey said – maybe remain from Europeanean/American cats…
The real breeds in the world are random bred cats having geographical origins: Angora (Anatolian), Europeanean/American (yes, they are not mixed moggies, but another ”race”), Asian cats and maybe some other cat populations we have no idea about (No breeder has discovered them yet?). These natural breeds are found in very wide areas, they are not quite rare like cat fancy wants to see them. Those cats underwent thousand of years of natural selection and are very healthy, special and beautiful cats (although not impressive enough for cat shows?)
Besides anyone can make a breed out of nowhere. It may just be harder to find very distinct looking cats and create fairy tales for them, but still if you have enough imagination, you may become a creator of a ”breed”:)
In genetics the ”Founder effect” may be a driving force for various cat breeds…
Not talking about the outcrossing, selective breeding and inbreeding also may create ”breeds” – genetically different cat populations, just artificially…
BUT still any breed will be representative of random bred cats it originated from – European/American, Asian, Anatolian etc…
Random bred cats are the REAL cat breeds.
I added a little note at the bottom of the article about a cloth called “Cyprus”. Tabby cats were called “Cyprus Cats” in parts of the UK at one time.