This is a very nice Selkirk Rex portrait showing the hair in close up. It is very clear as I would expect from Helmi Flick. You don’t always see the fur in such detail.
This relatively rare purebred cat breed was first discovered in Wyoming in 1987 as a random bred cat. It was developed into one of the ‘Rex Breeds’ (curly haired cat). What is interesting is that the cat in Helmi’s photo is a dilute tortie in my opinion. The original Selkirk Rex was a dilute calico (tortie-and-white) female kitten who was later named Miss De Pesto.
She was a curly coated cat in a litter of straight haired cats. The mother also had straight hair. She was deposited in an animal shelter as she was unwanted. Peggy Voorhees of the Bozeman Humane Society spotted her and the kitten was adopted by a Montana Persian cat breeder, Jeri Newman. Jeri mated her when she was 14-months-of-age with one of her Persians: Photo Finish. On the 4th July 1988 she gave birth to a litter of six kittens with half having curly coats.
Three Founding Cats
One of the curly haired kittens was a black-and-white male, the second was a black female and the third was a tortoiseshell female. The name of the breed comes from the Selkirk Mountains in Wyoming which is close to where the original Selkirk Rex Miss De Pesto had been discovered.
The Selkirk Rex gene is not related to any other of the Rex genes. Selkirk Rex cats cannot be crossed with other Rex cat breeds. I believe this Selkirk Rex Portrait was taken at Hampton Inn & Suites- Mesquite Convention Center.
