Cats In The Guinness World Records Book 2010
by Michael
(London, UK)
I see quite a lot of information on the internet about the biggest, fattest etc.. cat. And I wondered if these are formal records or not. By formal records, I do not necessarily mean Guinness World Records but they do have pretty rigorous criteria. They have about 50,000 applications for new records each year. Most, I am sure, get turned down. The waiting time for a response to a a request for an application form is apparently up to 4 months1.
On that basis a Guinness world record is pretty solid. And on that basis as at 2010 the Guinness World Records (GWR) 2010 contains just two cat records. Guinness don’t for example do fattest animal records as it may encourage people to ill treat animals. They have many restrictions on records to do with animals it seems to me. I find this sensible.
The two cats in the Guinness World Records book 2010 are:
Largest Cat Wingspan
I have actually built a page on this subject. It is about cats that sprout ‘wings’. Well these cats do not have wings in the conventional sense. I am surprised GWR do this record as it is caused, I believe, by a genetic disease called, Feline Cutaneous Asthenia (FCA) or simple Cutaneous Asthenia for humans. You can read more here: Winged Cats.
GWR says that when a cat with this disease grooms itself the skin extends.
The GWR record cites a cat in Northern Sweden of 1949 with a ‘wingspan’ of 23 inches (page 117 GWR)
The Oldest Cat Ever
This cat is named as Creme Puff (page 171 GWR). She was born 3rd August 1967 and died 6th August 2005. Her age on death was 38 years 3 days. She lived with her human companion, Jake Perry, in Texas, United States of America. There have been unproven reports of cats living into their 40s. I have a page on the age of cats.
Well, that is it for cats in the Guinness World Records book of 2010. Quite short, isn’t it? I had expected much more.
There are other world record databases. One is The Book of Alternative Records. A search did not revel any records to do with cats.
The GWR website does not contain all their records. This I presume is to encourage people to buy the book.
A search of the GWR website for ‘cat’ or ‘cats’ produces a single entry as far as I can see. This is a picture of the ‘smallest living cat’. There is no record of the smallest living cat in the GWR book. GWR don’t do such records as it encourages bad behavior (breeding cats that are unviably small).
OK that is it. This page is just for the record! To try a sort the informal from the formal and the fiction from the fact.
A visitor to this might be able to put me right if I am wrong.
References:
1. http://www.recordholders.org/en/rules/rules.html
