Paws for Thought
A Welsh cat with 26 toes made the BBC national news in June, with the comment that this might be a UK record. Naturally, amid the rich biodiversity of our locality, we can match that. Phoebus, a resident of Weston Green, also has 26 toes - seven on each front paw, and six on each hind paw.
As you know, polydactylism is genetically inherited as an autosomal dominant trait with incomplete penetrance. Usually it is present in just two paws; a cat with all four paws polydactyl is rarer. Polydactyl cats perhaps originated from a mutation in Boston, Massachusetts, and were spread worldwide by sailors, who judged them to possess a dexterity well adapted to the nautical life and thus to be 'lucky'. The author Ernest Hemingway was fond of a polydactyl cat about half of whose sixty descendants, still housed at Hemingway's home on Key West, have inherited polydactyly. 'Mitten cats' were less well viewed in Europe, where they were often killed as witches' familiars. As you can see from the photo, Phoebus regards these theories with contempt.
Phoebus's name is the Latin form of Phoibos, a Greek word for the Sun God, although we are reliably informed that he began life as Phoebe until his gender was firmly established. We gather that he is terribly superior, quite vain, and attention-seeking. His gracious owner Angela describes him as 'a strange cat' who is good at winding her up. Phoebus' low-life brother Dennis, who did not inherit the trait, agrees. Even though Phoebus inadvertently fell in a pond when a kitten, and he prefers to have the door opened for him rather than using his cat-flap, he is remarkably dextrous. It is hard to tell whether, as sailors believed, multiple claws make him a better hunter or not, in view of his over-riding laziness. Angela notes that he is 'not like other cats' and indeed does not like them. He appears very intelligent and has made substantial research contributions to the quantum theory of negative energy.
our reporting staff