www.thepurrcompany.com - Printer Friendly Page. Click Here for the regular version
Best Mouser
Featured in a previous edition of the Mews-letter, the world's most prolific mouser was Towser, who worked for the Famous Grouse distillery in Perthshire, Scotland.
Towser racked up an impressive 30,000 mice in his 24 years at the distillery, earning him a place in the Guinness Book of Records.
The Fastest Breed
Why should you never play cards in the Jungle? Because of all the cheetahs!!
You may think this is a bad joke, and rightly enough it is, but it is also true - you really shouldn't sit playing cards, or doing anything else, where you might unexpectedly encounter a cheetah.
Not only can even a young cheetah easily kill a person, but a healthy adult cheetah can run at speeds of up to 70MPH and has better acceleration than a Ferrari so it can out run you too!
The cheetah is officially the worlds fastest land animal!
The Smallest Cat
Commonly accepted as a celebrity in his own right these days, Mr Peebles is a tiny 2-year-old domestic cat, from Illinois in the USA.
Due to a rare genetic defect the fully-grown Mr Peebles weighs less than 1.5 Kg and stands just 16cm tall, thus taking the record for the worlds smallest cat!
We have been unable to verify reports that Mr Peebles has had a fatal encounter during a recent photo shoot with the world's largest living cat. We tend to think (hope) this must be a hoax, but we would appreciate hearing from anyone with further information about the alleged incident.
The Most Expensive Cat
The most expensive cat ever sold is officially a generation 2 Bengal by the name of Sarez Kato, sold for £25,000 in February 1998.
The breeder of Sarez Kato also claims to have sold cats for £65,000 but due to client confidentiality refuses to provide any proof.
They also have a 90% Asian Leopard Cat/10% Domestic Short Hair, named Zeus, but with price tag of £100,000 Zeus currently remains unsold and so doesn't qualify.
The Heaviest cat
The heaviest cat ever officially recorded was Himmy, a tabby born in 1976 in Cairns, Australia. Himmy weighed in at a whopping 21kg and lived to the age of ten.
In 2003 a Russian cat owner tried to have her five year old cat Katy recognised as the heaviest cat in the world. Unfortunately for Katy, the Guinness Book of Records are no longer taking submissions in this category, as they don't wish to encourage owners to over feed their cats.
The Oldest Cat
The life expectancy of a feral cat is less than 10 years, domestic cats enjoy an expectancy of 10 to 15 years, but once in a while a remarkable feline reaches more than double this age.
The oldest cat ever recorded was Creme Puff of Austin Texas. Born on August 3rd 1967, Creme Puff celebrated her 38th birthday in August 2005. We have been unable to find any conformation of Crème Puff's current corporal status.
Biggest Litter
A litter of kittens is generally numbers between 3 and 5, but in August 1870 a four year old Burmese named Tarawood Antigone gave birth to a staggering 19 kittens in Church Westcote, Oxfordshire. 14 males and 1 female survived.
Most well travelled
Cats have been noted for their ability to make long journeys to find their old homes, but not many cats are as well travelled as Hamlet.
After escaping from his carrier on a flight from Toronto, Hamlet stayed hidden for 7 weeks, until he was found alive and surprisingly well, hiding behind an interior panel.
I wonder how many Air Miles he gets for that?
More resources
A list of other famous or historically important cats, including some of those mentioned here, can be found at Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_historical_cats
This article was first published in The Purr Company's regular Mews-letter, visit us for more cat stories and articles, a gallery of our visitors cats , cat videos and our online shop. You may reproduce this article free of charge in any free newsletter or on any free web site on the condition that this resources box is included with any reproduction. © copyright The Purr Company |