Caturday felid trifecta: A new color of cat coats; cats with jobs; the source of cat words; and lagniappe

A new beautiful coat color has appeared in cats, as detailed in this Popular Mechanics article; and they know the exact changes in the DNA that are responsible.  Click to read:

https://www.popularmechanics.com/science/a60872696/new-cat-color/

You’ve probably heard of spooky black cats, chaotic orange cats, and distinguished-looking tuxedo cats. If you’re really into cats, you might have even lesser-known color variants like seal point and ticked tabby. But there’s officially a new cat color in town— salmiak, or ‘salty liquorice.’

The pretty black, white, and grey shade—named for a popular snack food in Finland, where this coat color has been making itself known—is thanks to a fur strand that starts off black near the root, but grows whiter and whiter out towards the tip. The coat was first spotted in 2007, and in 2019, it was brought to the attention of a group of cat experts lead by feline geneticist Heidi Anderson. Since then, the group has been trying to figure out exactly what causes this shade to express itself, and recently, they finally figured it out. A paper on the discovery has been published in the journal Animal Genetics.

When you’re digging into cat colors—or expressions of genetic traits in general, honestly—you start with the obvious and work your way out. So, the researchers naturally started by assuming that this new variant was just a fun way for the white-making ‘dilution’ gene to make itself known.

. . .But after digging through all the known genetic variations that control the expression of that dilution gene in coat color, the team came up empty. So, they took the next step—sequencing the entire genome of two of these special felines and digging through the whole mess of genetic data to find what was causing these new coats to appear.

It turns out that the answer was in what wasn’t there. “There was a huge chunk of sequence missing downstream from the KIT gene,” Anderson told New Scientist, referencing a gene known to affect white patterns in the coats of animals. And these cats were just… missing a piece of DNA right nearby.

After testing 181 cats to make sure they knew what they were seeing, the team was able to confirm that the missing sequence was in fact responsible for the salmiak coat color. And the mutation was recessive—the cat would only express this color if it inherited the mutation from both parents, which explains why this coloration isn’t a common one.

. . . Now that they’ve solved the mystery, the team is happy to sit back and admire their pretty kitties along with the rest of the world. “These coats have aroused a lot of admiration for years,” Anderson told New Scientist. “It’s really exciting that we now have some genetic explanation for it.”

What do they look like? Here’s the Animal Genetics paper (click to read) that found the genetic mutation responsible for the color, with some salmiak mutations shown below:

From the paper (click to enlarge). These all have the mutation, but in combination with other color genes as well. (f) has it with tortoiseshell coloring:

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The BBC has an article with cats having various jobs. I’ll put one example of each jog:

Post Office Cats:

In 1868 three cats were formally employed as mousers at the Money Order Office in London. They were “paid” a wage of one shilling a week – which went towards their upkeep – and were given a six-month probationary period.

They obviously did their job efficiently as in 1873 they were awarded an increase of 6d a week. The official use of cats soon spread to other post offices.

According to the Postal Museum, the most popular cat of all was Tibs. Born in November 1950, at his biggest he weighed 23lbs (10.4kg) and lived in the Post Office headquarters’ refreshment club in the basement of the building in central London. During his 14 years’ service he kept the building rodent-free.

The last Post Office HQ cat, Blackie, died in June 1984, and since then there have been no further felines employed there.

Tibs’s obituary from Post Office Magazine:

Police Cat:

Dogs have long been part of the police force, but cats rarely got a look-in – unless they were being arrested for burglary. But in the summer of 2016, Durham Constabulary recruited Mittens.

The appointment stemmed from a letter written by five-year-old Eliza Adamson-Hopper, who suggested the force add a puss to its plods. [JAC: be sure to click on the link.]

“A police cat would be good as they have good ears and can listen out for danger. Cats are good at finding their way home and could show policemen the way,” she said.

Mittens is not the only police cat. Oscar lives at Holmfirth Police Station in Huddersfield, where his job involves being “a therapeutic source of support for my officers”, and Smokey is a volunteer welfare officer at Skegness Police Station.

As a spokesman from the station said, “being a police officer can be very fast-paced and stressful job so when we need to take a break or grab some air now, many of us pop outside a spend a few minutes with Smokey”.

Oscar the Police Cat has his own Twitter Page, and here’s one tweet:

Morning for ID purposes here is me with our fabulous Chief Constable 😘👩‍✈️👌👍🏻#Asyouwere 😻👩‍✈️🐾🚓 pic.twitter.com/C6ATusG3ws

— PC OSCAR STATION CAT 💙 (@stationmoggy) April 26, 2019

Showbiz cats:

Arthur was the furry face of Spillers cat food for nearly 10 years from 1966, scooping Kattomeat from the tin into his mouth. He was such a star the brand was later renamed Arthur’s in his honour. There were rumours that Arthur was made to use his paw to eat because advertisers removed his teeth – but the allegation proved to be untrue. He was just a natural paw-dipper.

. . .Blue Peter’s Jason, a seal point Siamese, was the first in a long line of presenter pusses on the popular BBC children’s programme. Others included Jack and Jill, who became known as the disappearing cats, because of their habit of leaping out of whichever lap they were in whenever they appeared on screen, and Willow, who was the first Blue Peter cat to be neutered or spayed.

Two red Persians played the role of Crookshanks in the Harry Potter film franchise – Crackerjack was a male and Pumpkin a female – while Mrs Norris was played by three Maine Coons named Maximus, Alanis and Cornilus – each was trained to perform a specific act, such as jumping on to actors’ shoulders or lying still.

Here’s a Spiller’s commercial showing Arthur eating Kattomeat!

Military cats:

By World War Two, nearly every vessel had at least one ship’s cat.

One of them, Simon, became the only cat to be awarded the Dickin Medal – the animal equivalent of the Victoria Cross – for helping to save the lives of naval officers during the Chinese Civil War in 1949.

While the ship was under siege for 101 days, he was credited with saving the lives of the crew by protecting the ship’s stores from an infestation of rats.

The brave chap suffered severe shrapnel wounds when the ship came under fire and was given a hero’s welcome when it eventually returned to dock in Plymouth. Simon lived long enough to get back to England, but died in quarantine three weeks later. He was buried in Ilford, Essex, with full military honours.

Here’s the valorous Simon:

And one more:

The regiments were occupying the port of Sevastopol and could not find food. Tom could. He led them to hidden caches of supplies stored by Russian soldiers and civilians.

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From the wordorigins.com newsletter, we learn about the source of various words and phrases involving cats. Click on the headline to read, and I’ll give a few explanations (more at the site):

Here’s the source of the common American phrase “the cat’s pajamas”, meaning “someone who is swell or admirable”; but it can also mean “something that’s very good”.  Bolding below (showing first usage) is mine:

The phrase the cat’s pajamas (also cat’s whiskers or cat’s meow), meaning something superlative or excellent, is indelibly associated with the 1920s and the jazz age. The phrase is often credited to cartoonist Thomas Aloysius “Tad” Dorgan, but while he did use the cat’s meow (and perhaps other variants), Dorgan was not the originator.

These three are only the most popular and long-lasting in a series of animal phrases constructed with the definite article the, such as the antelope’s tonsils, bullfrog’s beard, canary’s tusks, caterpillar’s camisole/kimono/spats, clam’s cuticle/garters, crocodile’s adenoids, duck’s quack, elephant’s tonsils, frog’s eyebrows, kipper’s knickers, kitten’s vest, lion’s bathrobe, oyster’s eyetooth,  pig’s scream/whiskers, sandfly garters, snake’s eyebrows, and sparrow’s chirp. Not to mention other items belong to cats, such as cuffs, knee-knuckles, lingerie, nightgown, tonsillitis, and vest. And of course, there is the bee’s knees. It’s easy to see how the idea of such rare or impossible things could give rise to a phrase denoting something that is exceptional or especially noteworthy.

The earliest use of the cat’s pajamas that I have found is in the unit newspaper of the US Army’s 21st General Hospital in Denver, Colorado of 17 July 1919. The phrase appears in an announcement that the army baseball team will play the team from the local Armour meat company:

“Say Medina,” said he, “this ball team of mine needs a lotta practice; so I’d like to have ’em come out here to the Coop every Thursday evening and stage a game with the soldiers boys. When we come out, we’ll bring something for the boys every time—some Armour food product you know. We’ll also bring along a couplea [sic] stoves on which we can cook the stuff and serve the hot wienies, fried ham sandwiches and such delectable food. Whad’ye say?”

Well, what else could O’Brien’s Helper say but that he thought it would be the cat’s pajamas to have feed like that dished up to the fellows every Thursday.

A year later in his syndicated column of 5 July 1920, Damon Runyan “records” this fictional conversation between two delegates to a political convention:

Second Delegate (angrily)—I tell you I ain’t been nowhere! I’m out here for business, and all I want now is to get somebody nominated, such as McAdoo, and go back to Springfield. I’m sick of this delay. It’s daffy people like you who are holding us back by runnin’ around town, and not being at the convention on time.

First Delegate (astounded)—Well, now, that’s sure the cats pajamas! Of course, I don’t get to the convention much, but everybody knows I’m for Jimmy Cox and they vote me that way whether I’m there or not.

This is passage is also notable in that it’s an early use of Springfield as a non-specific anytown, ala The Simpsons. (Contrary to popular belief, a town called Springfield does not exist in every state but only in thirty-four of them. Riverside, appearing in forty-six states, takes the prize.)

There’s more, even for this phrase, so go over and have a look.

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Lagniappe: A 100-pound German Shepherd befriends a one-pound kitten (video is 1½ minutes):

h/t: Matt, Ginger K.