On the basis that all animal life including human life (and to me we are just the top animal predator) throws up differences and so called defects, all the time, then we should think that winged cats are normal. Many will disagree with me but it is true. And being true we should not have a media scrummage over a poor cat that has a couple of appendage like objects attached to his or her body. Lets leave them alone and simply love them.

I am referring to a domestic cat living in Qingyan province, China. This might not be the location as Google maps can’t find it (I think it is Xianyang city, Shaanxi province – see table). But the truth is that there is a long history of winged cats and a longer history of people being fascinated by such things and exploiting people or animals that have odd appearances. And we should not do this. There are two more points to make about winged cats (a) how often have there been “sightings” and (b) what actually is it?

The sightings (these amount to 138 cases in all – for common sense reasons I have not listed them all below, just a selection which tells the tale that winged cats are not that unusual):

Somerset, England about 1899

The Reasons:

These are threefold i.e. three possible causes of this condition:

• First possibility and one that has accounted for some “sightings” would be simple common matting due to poor grooming. Long haired cats can acquire very large dangling type matts that can look like wings to some people (they are looking for wings, perhaps).
• A development defect or genetic defect. This would include appendages like vestigial legs. There is a cat with 6 ears and some have 4 ears – similar developmental defect
• The most likely in my view is a genetic disease that is also found in humans called Feline Cutaneous Asthenia (FCA) or simple Cutaneous Asthenia for humans. It is also referred to as Collagen Dysplasia (Cutaneous Asthenia). Hereditary collagen dysplasias comprise a group of disorders of the connective-tissue resulting in a reduced tensile strength of the tissues affected.

  Source of events of winged cats: Sarah Hartwell

  • Photos: Bottom right – published under creative commons license by Julia Laing –
  • Somerset 1899 – in the public domain
  • Chinese winged cat – copyright waived or fair use as this is a site for cat rescue and the image is small and of poor quality.

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