Caturday felid trifecta: The fishing cat; malformed cat walks like a spider; bizarre paintings of medieval cats; and lagniappe

September 3, 2022 • 9:45 am

Today’s trifecta involves mostly watching cat videos and looking at cat pictures. But hey, who wants to read on a holiday?

This first video is about the only cat that subsists on fish and dives for them: the endangered fishing cat of Southeast Asia (Prionailurus viverrinus). Several years ago I saw two of them in the Singapore Zoo, but had to go at night since they are nocturnal. Also, they didn’t fish for us. Here’s a seven-minute video about their habits and biology. Since the cats are rare and secretive, much of this must have been filmed in a zoo.

A note about their size, taken from Wikipedia:

The fishing cat is the largest cat of the Prionailurus. It is about twice the size of a domestic cat and stocky and muscular with medium to short legs. Its head-to-body length ranges from 57 to 78 cm (22 to 31 in), with a tail of 20 to 30 cm (7.9 to 11.8 in). Female fishing cats range in weight from 5.1 to 6.8 kg (11 to 15 lb), and males from 8.5 to 16 kg (19 to 35 lb), evidencing quite pronounced sexual dimorphism in size for a cat of this size.

Sadly, they also eat ducks, and you can see a successful attack on a duck about 4 minutes in:

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Yes, this kitty, named Aries, was born deformed, and walks weirdly, but his staff loved him and adopted him.  Look how well he’s adapted! He even climbs into his carrier by himself.

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Jennifer Ouellette noticed what I did: medieval painters simply could not paint cats. The one below has a penis and testicles in its mouth, with the staff trying to swap those organs for a sardine! What’s that all about?

The collection of medieval cat drawings and paintings noted above can be seen at the link below (click on screenshot). See if you can find any that resemble a cat! I’ve put a few below to show you how the artists fail to observes properly. I have no theory as to why this is the case, except perhaps that artists concentrated more on humans, and so the cats often have humanlike faces. But many don’t look like any animal we know!

White cat:

Cat with eyebrows:

Scottish cat playing the bagpipes:

“Medieval Cheshire Cat”:

Magpie (not badly drawn) inspecting the butt of a cat:

What’s with the noses here?

Keyboard cat looks like a mouse:

There are 53 others at the site–go see ’em all!

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Lagiappe: From boingboing, we have a cat obsessed with almonds. (h/t Barry),

First a note, then a video:

Ari the cat has a big personality and is obsessed with a tiny almond. Ari is a black cat that has a unique way of tiptoeing around the house, constantly arches her back, and enjoys jumping and running along the wall vertically. Her owner explains that Ari never showed interest in most toys. One day, Ari’s owner presented her with an almond, and Ari became fascinated by it.

Ever since that day, Ari’s favorite hobbies include batting almonds around on the floor, holding them in her little paw, and hiding them around the house. It reminds me of how certain children will get bored after playing with a toy for a few minutes but will spend all day playing inside a cardboard box. Some cats like to play with toys from the pet store, but for Ari, all you need is an almond or two to get her going.

And even more lagniappe: reader Divy’s photo of her lovely cat Jango. He has lovely ticked fur and bottle-green eyes.

14 thoughts on “Caturday felid trifecta: The fishing cat; malformed cat walks like a spider; bizarre paintings of medieval cats; and lagniappe”

  2. http://blog.cnbeyer.com/history/renaissance-history/well-thats-awkward-when-the-cat-gets-hold-of-someones-genitals/

    This is my favorite WTF image in a long time. Dating from 1555, it’s a Renaissance image. I don’t officially know the story behind it, but there’s a good discussion of it on Reddit.

    Says sl99:

    ‘Flaisch macht Flaisch’ is from the old German proverb ‘Fleisch macht Fleisch, fisch macht nisch’. It would roughly translate to ‘meat gives meat, fish gives nothing’, meaning that meat is more nourishing than fish.

    Fleisch is in German also connected to ‘Fleischeslust’, which means carnal desire. The fish can be connected to the catholic tradition of eating fish on friday, or abstinence from eating meat.

    So in this picture, the proverb is interpretated (sic) in a raunchy way. The nun wants to trade the fish that implicates abstinence from meat/lust for the meat that obviously represents carnal desire.

    Considering the subject, time period (1555) and origin (Germany, as indicated by language), it is presumably Protestant propaganda. Nuns and monks were widely depicted as subsumed by material desires in contrast to their vows, and Protestants had rejected celibacy as a requirement for priests. Quite the opposite, they commonly emphasized the importance of marriage, children and family bonds.

    Thus, the nun is desperate to “get some” as a woman would naturally want, presumably from the leering man in the jester’s cap hanging out the window, who has just been emasculated. In a further bit of satire, a phallus also dangles from her rosary..

    2. a phallus also dangles from her rosary..

      What’s that “small order art/crafts” website? Esty, or something like that?
      Paging Esty … your services are needed! It’s Sister Agnes’ birthday coming up (who isn’t a sister but a great aunt, isn’t Agnes but Maria (why? whatever), but who is a Sister).

  3. An excellent trifecta as always – thanks!

    Since the cats are rare and secretive, much of this must have been filmed in a zoo.. The Cincinnati Zoo and Biological Gardens are thanked in the credits, so I’m guessing the footage was (mostly?) filmed there?

  4. What gets me about this is, if people can cross-breed domestic cats with (whatever – a central Asian non-Felis sylvestris lybica feline) to get “Bengal” catlings … is it within the bounds of possibility for someone to do the same with these to get bath-time cats?
    Which would imply also : no chain mail for washing the cat ; marketing for cat shampoo and cat “fur conditioner” ; then cat hairdressers and … maybe it’s best to stop there. Not necessarily a good idea.

  5. Cats 7 and 10 have reasonably well-drawn bodies but terrible heads. Cat 24 is not TOO bad. Most of them are hilariously bad.

    1. Better remind him/her, “Not all that tempts your wandering eyes
      And heedless hearts, is lawful prize;
      Nor all that glisters, gold.”

  7. “Sadly, they also eat ducks.” A few weeks ago we watched a river otter catch and kill a pelagic cormorant in Burrard Inlet off Vancouver. Submarine technique, cormorant swimming at the surface, otter attacked from below.

  9. I suggest a lot of the artists (monks?) were being humorous depicting faces of people – “here’s brother Dominic as a cat- hahaha!”

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