World’s Biggest Cat

What is the world’s biggest cat? – people want to know. You’re about to find out. This page was written a long time ago and was seen hundreds of thousands of times. The information remains accurate. The page has been checked, brought forward and re-dated.

I think that we have to look at individual cats and breeds and then differentiate between domestic and wild. Before I do that let me say that the largest individual cat at 2019 is Hercules a Liger; see base of page. My research indicates that Hercules is still alive.

“Hercules, the largest non-obese liger, is recognised by the Guinness Book of World Records as the largest living cat on Earth, weighing 418.2 kg (922 lb). Hercules was featured on the Today Show, Good Morning America, Anderson Cooper 360, Inside Edition, and in a Maxim article in 2005, when he was only three years old and already weighed 408.25 kg (900 lb).”

Domestic cat breed

This is a bit tricky because some pure wild cats are now domesticated. I am thinking of the Serval, a medium small wild cat that can, with great care, be a domestic cat, if tamed and trained properly. If included the Serval wins this poll or indeed any wild cat! But I don’t think this is the information people are looking for. The next cat down from a wildcat that is big is an F1 or F2 Savannah. F1 stands for first filial and F2 for second filial. Filial means generation.

The top breeders of the Savannah is A1 Savannahs managed by Martin & Kathrin Stucki (it changed hands several years ago and the Stuckis now run a hotel in Montana as I recall). The heading picture is one of her F2 Savannahs and it gives a very clear indication of the size of this cat breed. Many people were surprised to see a domestic cat that size when I first published it although the angle enlarges the cat. I’ll get right to the point. The F1-F2 Savannah is the worlds biggest cat (domestic cat that is). Here she is! F1 Savannah MAGIC (as at 2019, I believe that she is still alive and living in California):

The videos are of a female F1 Savannah cat called MAGIC (Scarlett’s Magic) from the famous A1 Savannahs cattery. MAGIC’s father was a serval cat and her mother a Savannah cat. She is 16-month years old at the date of the video (Sept. 2009) and she is spayed. She is probably the World’s Biggest Cat (true domestic cat that is). See more Savannah cat videos.

Update: It is official. MAGIC is the Guinness Book of Records World Tallest domestic cat. It is a slightly strange title but it means the measurement to the shoulder. She is an incredible 43.43 centimeters (17.1 inches) high. Now that tells us quite a lot about the complexities of awarding that award. Is MAGIC the longest too? This is to come. And what is a domestic cat. Now that is a big question….

The Savannah can be found under a different name – the Ashera and/or Ashera GD (hypoallergenic variety). This cat is bred by cat breeders for Life Style Pets Inc. (Allerca cats is their trading name). This means incidentally that the F1 Savannah cat is probably naturally hypoallergenic!

If you’re thinking of the world’s biggest purebred cat, totally domestic cat (meaning no wild cat parents), the Maine Coon does it across the board. Fantastic cat. The Maine Coon is the largest breed registered by the Cat Fanciers Association.

His name is Shooter – photo copyright wendyophoto

Update: June 2018: The two Maine Coons below are not officially the largest Maine Coons in the world but one of them might well be because you can’t take the Guinness World Records as the ultimate arbiter of the largest. It depends if the owner bothers to report their cat to this book publisher.

Wild Cat Species

I’ll keep this short. The biggest wild cat is the tiger (weight up to about 675 lbs for males but the heaviest was apparently a cat called Amur weighing 1025 lbs). See Tiger and Wild Cat Species by Size

Individual cat

Really tricky if you want to really know the truth. The point is are we looking at all cats or domestic cats? Guinness Book of Records doesn’t really help. The picture below is circulating around the internet (at 2010) so I’ll have to presume that it is published under creative commons or by permission. Is it a Photoshop job? Doesn’t look like it too me. The other very large cat that you frequently see on the internet (white cat) is a manipulated image.

Above is ginger cat is a male Maine Coon/Siberian type (probably not purebred). This is a cat that is heavily featured on the internet – heavens knows why. Male Maine Coons can weigh as much as 25 lbs and this cat looks about that weight. Of course, you can’t ignore the F1 Savannah MAGIC. As I say you will probably find one of the largest domestic cats amongst the F1 Savannah cats.

Clearly, you can’t include fat cats in this category because that it artificially increasing the weight but not the true size of the cat. But if you did there are stories of 35-41 lb domestic cats. This is about 5-10 lbs more than the biggest domestic cats of normal weight.

As for Maine Coons (a natural choice for largest domestic cat), the picture below always comes to my mind as one of the largest domestic cats that I have seen and I have seen thousands. I don’t know the cat’s name or the name of the owner. Their head size is similar!

Motzie, an F2 Savannah, is close to being the the world’s biggest domestic cat on a measurement to the shoulder. But an F1 like MAGIC above in the video will nearly always be bigger and is now declared the tallest. Motzie is an F2 Savannah cat owned by Deborah-Ann Milette. He is a fine cat, a friendly cat and he assists children! True. He is from A1 Savannahs as well and he might be the world’s most famous domestic cat (at around 2008):

Motzie is an F2 Savannah — This is a copyrighted image.

 
The largest wildcat, albeit captive at one time was a Liger and I think still is at 2010 (a cross between tiger and lion). See Liger Pictures – Hercules. The size is possibly due to “hybrid vigor” although the owners are not sure. When you cross two different species of cat or breed of cat the first offspring are bigger sometimes. Below is a video of Hercules.

That’s it folks………

From Worlds Biggest Cat to Largest Domestic Cat Breeds