Caturday felid trifecta: The cat that inherited $13 million; cats in NYT; cats help students learn genetics; and lagniappe

From Now I Know we have the story of a moggy who became a multimillionare. Click on the title to see the tail. . .

Actually, at first the money didn’t go to the cat, but to an animal rescue organization. An excerpt:

. . . . . we can still imagine what a pet would purchase if they had more money than they would ever need. Would they splurge on gourmet treats? Build a mansion with a room dedicated to chasing laser pointers? Or maybe just nap on a pile of cash?

For one Italian cat named Tommaso, this isn’t just a hypothetical—it’s his reality. Kind of.

In 2007, Tommaso was a homeless kitten, living on the streets of Rome — your stereotypical alley cat. He quickly became the feline equivalent of a rags-to-riches story when a woman named Maria Assunta, then either 89 or 90 years old, adopted Tommaso as her own. Tommaso became one of Assunta’s few companions; her husband, a property magnate, predeceased her, and she didn’t have any children (and apparently, not a lot of friends). And when Assunta passed away in 2011, she left her entire fortune—$13 million—to Tommaso. Yes, you read that right: the cat became a multimillionaire.

Of course, you can’t easily leave cash to a cat, but that’s what lawyers are for. As the Times of India reported, “Lawyers Anna Orecchioni and Giacinto Canzona who are representing her say that she left the fortune to Tommasino in a will she wrote and deposited with them in their office in Rome in October 2009. Orecchioni explained that under Italian law Tommassino is not entitled to inherit the money directly and the will also asked for the money to be given to a ‘worthy animal association, if one could be found.’ She added: ‘We had requests from several organizations but we didn’t find any that we thought suitable.’”

The solution was to give control of the money to a nurse who had cared for Assunta instead. The nurse — identified in the press only as Stefania, to protect her from people who want the cat’s money — was named as the trustee of the millions for the benefit of the cat. Stefania was apparently unaware of her late employer’s wealth, but didn’t seem to mind that it went to the cat and not her. As she told the Telegraph, “I promised her that I would look after the cat when she was no longer around. She wanted to be sure that Tommaso would be loved and cuddled. But I never imagined that she had this sort of wealth. She was very discreet and quite, I knew very little of her private life. She only told me that she had suffered from loneliness a lot.”

Tommaso’s newfound wealth catapulted him into the ranks of the world’s richest animals. He’s in good company, joining the likes of Grumpy Cat, whose internet fame brought in millions. But Tommaso’s story stands out because it’s not about fame or business ventures—it’s about love and loyalty.

Here’s a Tik Tok video purporting to show the wealthy Tommaso. But of course a cat cannot spend $13 million, even the late Karl Lagerfeld’s famous cat Choupette, who had an unknown amount of money (surely large) and her own maid and fancy vittles to nom.

@urhobofinest

Tommaso the rich cat 😺 #tommaso #blackcat #blackcats #blackcatlovers #urhobofinest

♬ original sound – Urhobo Finest

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World’s Best has a short article containing interesting facts about cats and New York City (I’ll be going there in June so this is essential information). Click below to reead:

An excerpt:

If you haven’t been buried under some litter as of late then you already know that New York City was named the Top Cat Kingdom, aka the city that uses the most cat litter in the United States.

As word of this major litter distinction spreads throughout the NYC metro, we decided to do some digging on all the other curious connections between cats and the big city. (Drawing from Facebook):

Moar facts (bolding is theirs):

How many cats are there in New York City?

Last checked, there was approximately 500,000 pet cats in New York City, but that doesn’t reflect the immense feral and stray cat population — which was last estimated to be around 500,000 to 1 million.

If you want to see a cat, the best thing is to go to a bodega.

Bodega cats are a notable aspect of New York City’s culture, residing in local convenience stores for companionship and err to deter pests. Bodega cats are so popular in fact, there’s even an Instagram account (@bodegacatsofinstagram) dedicated to them!

Here’s a bodega cat named Martinez shown on Tik Tok:

@shopcatsshow

Meet Martinez in East Harlem Host: @MICHELLADONNA Producer/DP: Drew Rosenthal (@Be Happy For Once) Editors: Drew Rosenthal & Sean Fitzmaurice AE: Ryan Novak Art Direction: Sunny Li Translation: Sabrina Sanchez PA: Sam Aberbach A show by @madrealities.tv #cat #shopcats #bodegacat #harlem #nyc

♬ original sound – Shop Cats

Other facts and things to do in NYC if you’re an ailurophile:

If you’re a cat-lover (either just visiting or currently without a cat) looking to see the sites, you’ve got to go to the Brooklyn Cat Café — one of NYC’s most famous cat adoption cafés, where you can sip coffee & cuddle adoptable kitties!

You could also swing by the one of Animal Care Centers of NYC locations and say hello to the cats in their care. The crew at ACC of NYC is not only a GiveLitter® shelter partner, but it’s NYC’s largest animal shelter.

• In the early 20th century, cats were employed in New York City post offices to control rodent populations, with over 200 cats on duty in 1910.  (Source: Smithsonian Magazine)
• New York City is home to multiple famous cats – including Morris the Cat, Hamlet the Broadway Cat, and more. (Source: Cats About Town)
• In 2013, two kittens shut down subway service when they ran loose on the tracks in Brooklyn. The city stopped trains until the kittens were safely rescued! (Source: CBS News)
• In the early 20th century, Swain’s Rat and Cat Circus featured trained cats and rats performing together. This act was part of the vaudeville scene and showcased in venues like Huber’s Palace Museum on East 14th Street. (Source: The Hatching Cat of Gotham)

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Finally, we have an article about cat genetics from the prestigious journal Genetics. It’s one of the best resources I’ve seen to learn how to tell the coat genotype of a cat by looking at it. Click on the title to read or download the pdf here.

The explanation of the major genes are very clear, like this:

Long hair: Long hair is recessive, and is indicated by ll. Short hair is either Ll or LL. An explanation of this is appropriate at the very beginning of Mendelian genetics.

Agouti: An explanation of the agouti gene and its effect on hair pigmentation patterns is appropriate in the context of epistasis. Many genetics texts include examples of agouti and black in mice as an example of epistasis. In cats the explanation is complicated by the Tabby gene, which controls the pattern of expression of agouti. This concept is one of the more difficult ones for students. I generally use the example of mice to explain the pattern of pigmentation of each hair caused by the agouti gene, then introduce the idea that in cats the Tabby gene causes the agouti gene to be expressed for a different period of time during the hair growth cycle in the stripes, leading to the Tabby pattern. We do not score alleles of Tabby in the exercise because T^b (Tabby-blotched) and T^a (Tabby-abyssinian) are very rare in this area. In general it simplifies things for the students to use the Tabby pattern as an indicator of whether the cat is agouti (A_) or nonagouti (aa). If they can see a Tabby pattern in the fur, then the cat must be agouti, whereas if the colors are solid then the cat is nonagouti.

Dominant white: An all-white cat with nonpink eyes is likely to be W_ rather than albino. Albino cats are fairly rare; out of 1519 cats, my students have never reported one. Dominant white is an example of dominant epistasis as it is impossible to score any of the other color genes in the presence of W. Dominant white kittens often have one or more small pigmented spots on the forehead that usually fade by adulthood.

Siamese and Burmese: The c gene has two different temperature-sensitive alleles, c^s (Siamese) and c^b (Burmese). Both are recessive to C. The Burmese has more pigmentation in the warm parts of the body than the Siamese. I try to discourage students from genotyping Siamese and Burmese as the breeding of these cats is generally under close control by humans, thus the Hardy-Weinberg assumption of random mating is unlikely to be true. If students turn in the genotype of a Siamese or Burmese, I count the number of C and c alleles and calculate the allele frequencies, but do not include the other color genes from these cats in the population totals. If the class size were smaller, I would strongly discourage use of any fancy breeds.]

Students get a checklist (below) and get credit for walking around, looking at cats, and sussing out their genotypes from their appearance. Some of them get so into it that they do more cats than are required. I can understand that.  Anyway, if you have a cat, this is a good general article on cat coat genetics that’s accessible to the layperson.

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Lagniappe from Divy, who enjoys “seeing cats enjoying a good soak”:

 

h/t: Killian, Matthew, Ginger K.