Mystery cat picture. What is it?

It took me a little while to figure what was happening in this photograph. The picture is abstract. You see layers of wavy material. There are three layers of off-white material and in between, in a kind of sandwich, you have what appears to be grey material, also wavy.

Well, you may have guessed before me but this is a cat picture and what you see is the two front paws of a Sphynx cat (a hairless cat). The cat’s claws have been trimmed by their owner. You can see that the trimming is inconsistent. The claws of the right paw have been trimmed back perhaps a little too far while the claws of the left paw look as if they have been trimmed more accurately to me. Except one is not cut back far enough.

Mystery cat picture? A grey-skined Sphynx (hairless cat) lying between some bedding with their fron paws sticking out.
Mystery cat picture? A grey-skined Sphynx (hairless cat) lying between some bedding with their front paws sticking out. I don’t know who took the picture and have presumed that it is in the public domain.

Because there is no fur on a Sphynx cat the definition of the anatomy of the paw is visible and much clearer. The dark paw pads look as if they are ‘hanging’ below the claws. The claws are partly enveloped by grey tissue. This cat, if they had a fur coat, would probably be grey (or blue in cat fancy language). The skin of Sphynx cats follows the colour of their fur if it had existed.

You can’t see an important feature of domestic cat anatomy in this photograph, but if this cat had opened their toes (as when stretching) you would be able see that their paws were webbed quite considerably. This seems to be an inherited anatomical feature of all domestic cats from their wildcat ancestor who is a good swimmer and who preys on amphibians as well as terrestrial mammals, insects and birds.

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