Well, I have some cat stuff for you. The first is a doozy: the world’s most polydactylous cat: a Maine Coon with 29—count them—29 toes. That’s 11 more than the normal number of 18, with 5 toes on each front paw (including the dewclaw) and four on each rear foot. Click the screenshot to read the article from  Parade Pets:

An excerpt:

This ridiculously fluffy gray Maine Coon kitten has so many extra toes that his family literally started counting them because they suspected they might have a Guinness World Record holder living in their house. They were right. Erebus officially holds the Guinness World Record for the most toes on a cat, and I don’t even want to imagine how long it takes to trim all those tiny claws.

The adorable video was shared by TikTok user @kendraschultz81 and features Erebus proudly showing off his impressively oversized paws.

According to WFRV Local 5, Erebus was born with 29 toes. His family, Kendra and Hunter of Blue Northern Maine Coons, realized almost immediately that they might have something extraordinary on their hands and carefully counted every single toe. After completing Guinness World Records’ verification process, Erebus officially became the new world record holder for the most toes on a cat.

Polydactyly is a naturally occurring genetic trait that causes cats to be born with extra toes. While it can occur in many breeds, it’s especially common in Maine Coons, where the extra toes are thought to have helped their ancestors walk more easily through snow and rough terrain.

Most polydactyl cats have one or two extra toes on some of their paws, but Erebus takes things to an entirely different level with an astonishing 29 toes.

The condition isn’t usually painful, and many polydactyl cats live completely normal, healthy lives. In fact, many pet parents think the oversized paws make them even more adorable.

. . . aaaand, here’s a video report on Erebus. Look at the size of these feet! At first he had lung problems, and wasn’t expect to survive, but the feisty moggy survived.

Here’s the Tik Tok video that brought Erebus fame:

@kendraschultz81

♬ Seven Nation Army – The White Stripes

Guinness hasn’t yet updated its record, as it still reports, at the link below, two cats who tied with a 28-toe count, but Erebus has one more:

A quote:

An adorable 10-month-old kitten named Toby Henderson (USA) has tied a longstanding Guinness World Records title for the most toes on a cat, after equalling Jake the Polydactyl Cat’s (Canada) 2002 total of 28 claw-some digits.

Toby, who belongs to Delaney Henderson, recently found his forever home in Lansing, Michigan, and was made Officially Amazing on 12 May 2025. He lives alongside his loving parents and sister Connie, another polydactyl cat who has two extra toes on her front paws.

Here are two photos of Toby’s feet, but remember that Erebus beat him by a toe:

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Now here’s a clickbait headline from the Washington Post that will lure cat-lovers (click to read, or see it archived here). A tuxedo kitten was first stolen from a pet store, and then somehow used in a bank robbery:

An excerpt:

That should be “tail”.  I wonder how the kitten was “used”. Did the suspect thrust Magnolia at the teller and say, “Give me all your money. I have a kitten.”? And they didn’t even charge him with catnapping. . .

Here’s a short video showing photos of the lovely Magnolia.

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From “good.good.good.co,” we learn that Nebraskans had an unofficial State Cat named Cameron, who until recently haunted the grounds of the state Capitol Building in Lincoln. Now ailurophiles are capaigning to put a statue of Cameron on the Capitol grounds. Click below to read:

An excerpt:

The Nebraska State Capitol’s unofficial feline mascot could soon become a permanent fixture outside the historic building he brought warmth and love to for a decade.

Until this spring, Cameron the “Capitol Cat” made a home away from home at the Capitol near his downtown Lincoln residence with his owner, Dianna McGinnis. After long legislative days, staffers and lawmakers alike would greet Cameron, even on nights after heated filibusters or those that stretched toward midnight. Many found relief as he awaited their attention.

Cameron retired in May as the unofficial Capitol greeter when McGinnis moved to assisted living. But his pawprint on lawmakers, staff, and community members well beyond Nebraska could soon live on with a statue on the south side of the Capitol off Goodhue Boulevard.

The life-size bronze statue of Cameron would be about 18-20 inches tall and sit atop a pedestal made from Indiana limestone, about 28-32 inches in height. The limestone is proposed to mirror the stone facing and architectural trim of the historic Nebraska State Capitol.

“I mean, let’s be real, it would be so freaking cute and everybody would get their picture by it, and his little head would be petted, and it’d be shiny gold because everybody would rub his little head coming in,” state Sen. Jana Hughes of Seward, who is helping the project, said Friday.

No state or taxpayer funds would go toward the statue.

Hughes, who joined the Legislature in 2023, and former state Sen. Anna Wishart of Lincoln, who served between 2017 and 2025, will pitch the privately funded project to the Nebraska Capitol Environs Commission on Friday. The meeting is for feedback initially, and the supporters would need final approval before the statue could be affixed near the Capitol.

More:

Hughes said she first heard of the statue idea around the time lawmakers adjourned in April from one of her constituents, Scott Shafer, who works for the Nebraska Commission on Indian Affairs. Using artificial intelligence, she created a rendering of how the statue could look. However, the final design would fall to the storied sculptor supporters hope to hire.

Benjamin Victor of Boise, Idaho, the artist behind the Ponca Chief Standing Bear and Dr. Susan La Flesche Picotte statues on Lincoln Mall north of the Nebraska Capitol has agreed to sculpt the bronze Cameron.

. . .As of Tuesday afternoon, the fundraising campaign had raised almost $3,500 toward its $37,500 goal just a few days after launching. Shaw has also agreed to donate profits from his photo book about Cameron to the project through October.

The cost includes Victor’s estimate and ongoing maintenance. Meeting materials indicate minimal upkeep with materials “designed to withstand Nebraska seasonal cycles without degradation.”

While Shaw was not necessarily an animal photographer, he said he always enjoyed photographing Cameron. He has two adopted cats of his own — littermates, which his daughters named Toby, after “The Office” character, and Peanut, for a marking on his nose.

The article was published this week, and, sadly, the project appears to be in limbo, as this headling from Nebraska Public Media appeared yesterday. Click to read:

An excerpt from that:

Plans to memorialize Cameron the Capitol Cat’s years of service in the Nebraska Legislature are in limbo after the Nebraska Capitol Environs Commission expressed doubts about his ability to withstand the test of time.

Blockheads!  Here’s their unconvincing explanation:

Landis said the statues included both in and around the Capitol building are placed there because of the significance of their lives and accomplishments. While many of the real people the statues commemorate and those who knew them have passed beyond living memory, Landis said they deserve to be remembered. The statues are placed on the environs to instruct the public about their lives.

“This is a well-loved cat,” Landis said. “But when the time runs out and those of you who loved this cat have passed by, what is the historical significance of the cat?”

Commission members one after the other voiced their agreement with Landis, saying that the cat cannot be seen as comparable to statues of important historical figures like Ponca tribal chief Standing Bear, who advocated for his tribe’s right to live on their own land and won against the U.S. Government.

Courtney Wittstruck, a public commenter, said Cameron’s significance was more than the love visiting fourth grade classes had for him. While intense debates were going on within the Capitol, Cameron greeted everyone, regardless of party or political view, the same, Wittstruck said.

“He became a small but meaningful symbol of the best of Nebraska: kindness, friendliness and compassion,” Wittstruck said, adding that a plaque should go with the statue to emphasize the symbolism. “It’s a reminder that we are all Nebraskans and that, at the end of the day, we have more in common than we have differences.”

See? Cameron exemplifies Nebraska’s kindness and friendliness. What more do these legislators need than that?  Well, I hope they put the statue up somewhere near the Capitol building if it isn’t approved. In the meantime, here’s a video:

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Lagniappe:

Komatsu rescued! Fitted with a hard hat and put to work.

Click headline to read (from the UPI’s Odd News:

An excerpt:

A kitten rescued from inside an excavator has become the newest member of an Ohio construction crew, complete with her own vest and hard hat.

Chase Guello, operating supervisor with RiverReach Construction, was examining an excavator at a Leavittsburg job site when he found the tiny orange kitten inside the engine bay.

The crew was unable to locate the kitten’s mother or any siblings in the area.

The construction company named the cat Komatsu in honor of the brand of excavator, or Sue for short.

Sue spent two weeks in foster care before being placed with RiverReach’s shop mechanic, Jared, and his family.

“Once she’s of age, she’ll be traveling to and from work with him, and she’ll eventually become a shop cat under his supervision,” Guello told WJW-TV.

Meanwhile, video of Sue’s rescue went viral online, and came to the attention of officials at Komatsu.

The company sent RiverReach a tiny safety vest and hard hat for Sue.

Click on the screenshot below (and put the sound up) to see the Instagram post of Sue’s rescue:

You can see more photos of Sue and her work clothes at the River Reach Construction Instagram page.

Extra lagniappe: two cat tweets:

There is a food vending machine for cats in Turkey, the seagulls meow pretending to be cats pic.twitter.com/F0mhnqY2Pg

— Science girl (@sciencegirl) August 28, 2026

In Turkey, an elderly man who shines shoes for a living is visited each morning by a cat that comes for its daily brushing

— Wait That's Interesting (@waitinteresting.bsky.social) 2026-08-28T00:04:39.217Z

h/t: Norman, Debra, Matthew

We have a couple of items (plus lagniappe) for Caturday, but I fear interest in this feature is waning. If you’d like it to continue, sing out below and, more important, send me cat-related items from time to time. Thanks!

First, a four-minute video from the Number Ten Cat describing the origin of Caturday. (The information is brief, but there are good cat videos and good jazz music.):

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From PetHelpful we hear about a Red British Longhair kitten called Copper, who apparently likes to sleep in a “starfish” position, with all five “arms” extended. First, the backstory for a short video (the post is a bit over the top):

This rare red British longhair kitten named Copper’s nap position makes him look like an unbothered starfish, and one day I aspire to be this level of relaxed. A cozy prince! We love to see it.

In the YouTube Shorts clip shared by Pearl’s Ragdolls, a very floofy Copper is shown lying flat on his back, with every single paw extended outward, just like a tiny and fluffy starfish. I have never seen a more comfortable kitty, to be honest. Eventually, Copper’s sibling Vanilla falls asleep right beside Copper in a moment of pure cuteness overload. My heart can’t take it!

“This is Copper’s favorite way to sleep,” said Pearl in the caption of the sweet and hilarious YouTube Shorts video.

For more context, Copper is a newer member of Pearl’s family of cats, so seeing him sleeping in such a relaxed and vulnerable way shows he already feels so safe in his new home. It really is far too cute for words!

“Copper has obviously adjusted so well and appears to feel so safe and looks so content. I love that for him,” wrote one fan in a comment on the clip.

“He looks so comfortable. Just airing everything out,” exclaimed someone else.

“It’s Copper’s natural camouflage, pretending to be a fuzzy pillow,” joked a third person.

And Copper in his your-heart-can’t-take-it pose:

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Moving on to science, VICE highlights a new Current Biology article investigating how cats identify each other through sniffing the urine left in the environment. It involves long-term fatty acids whose profile is individually specific, and can be identified by sniffing.

First, from VICE, we have a good, informative science report:

If you share a home with a cat, you already know two things: they do whatever they want, and they’re annoyingly good at it. What you probably didn’t know is that every time your cat pees outside the litter box or marks a corner of the yard, they’re leaving behind a chemically encoded message that other cats can read like a name tag. Scientists just figured out how.

A study published August 19 in Current Biology identified the compounds behind this system—a group of chemicals called branched-chain fatty acids, or BFAs, that give each cat a unique scent fingerprint in their urine. The signatures hold up even after the cat is long gone, and for an animal running its entire social life through scent, that’s the point. Cats spray to claim territory, advertise for mates, and flag their presence to rivals. A message that evaporates in an hour is useless. These don’t.

The more interesting question was how. Urine composition changes with diet, health, and age. How does a cat’s chemical ID card stay consistent through all of that? The answer turned out to be hiding in the kidneys—specifically in tiny fat droplets in the renal cortex that researchers have known about for over a century without understanding what they do. The new study found they function as reservoirs, maintaining each cat’s individual BFA profile regardless of what else is going on biologically. Some of the BFAs identified had never been reported in other mammalian excretions or secretions.

To confirm cats were picking up on those signatures, researchers measured the flehmen response — that wide-mouthed, briefly horrified expression that makes cats look like they’re personally offended. The behavior pulls odor compounds into the vomeronasal organ, a scent-processing structure that handles pheromones and other chemical signals. Cats showed the response less when repeatedly exposed to the same urine sample, but dialed it back up when a new cat’s sample appeared. They were reading individual IDs, not just detecting urine generically.

Study co-author Masao Miyazaki, a biomolecular scientist at Iwate University in Japan, told Live Science he didn’t expect an instinctive behavior to be so responsive to familiarity and learning. Cornell neurobiologist Michael Sheehan, who wasn’t involved in the research, compared the BFA system to a human face—the primary signal animals use to tell each other apart, even when subtler cues are available.

Lions and tigers use the same system, with their own kidney droplets and BFA profiles, though the specific compounds differ by species. The research team now wants to understand whether disruptions to the droplet system contribute to chronic kidney disease in cats—which would make this line of inquiry much more medically urgent than they thought.

From Grok, evidence that cats can tell individuals apart from the odor of their pee (I’ve omitted the references):

Behavioral experiments confirmed that cats discriminate individual urine odors (also apparently from the new study):

• In habituation-dishabituation tests, cats spend less time sniffing repeatedly presented urine from the same donor but increase investigation when switched to urine from a different cat. Familiarity effects can last months, indicating long-term olfactory memory of specific scents.
• Cats show the flehmen response (the open-mouthed “stinky face” expression that helps funnel chemicals to the vomeronasal organ) more often toward unfamiliar urine than their own; the response decreases with repeated exposure to the same sample and rises again with a new individual’s urine.
• Critically, when other urinary lipid components were controlled and only the donor-specific BFA fraction was varied, cats still detected the difference and increased sniffing after habituation to the original.

Urine spraying (backing up to a vertical surface, raising the tail, and squirting) is a deliberate scent-marking behavior used by both males and females. It deposits these chemical signals in prominent locations to communicate territory ownership, individual identity, sex, reproductive/hormonal status, and other information, helping cats avoid direct conflict in overlapping ranges. Other volatile organic compounds (including sulfur-containing ones derived from felinine, more prominent in intact males) contribute to the overall pungent “catty” odor and additional messages, while urinary proteins (such as cauxin) can enhance adhesion of sprayed urine to surfaces and thus prolonged odor release.

In short, the BFA profiles provide a durable, metabolically encoded individual signature buffered by the kidneys, which cats read olfactorily to recognize specific conspecifics from urine marks. This complements other scent sources (e.g., anal gland secretions, which also vary individually and support recognition) but specifically addresses how urine marks retain identifiable information despite environmental changes over time.

If you have a cat, you’ll probably have noticed the “flehmen response”, which is the “grimace face” a cat makes when it smells certain substances (especially cat pee). PetMD describes how it works and gives a handy diagram:

The flehmen response is a behavioral response to certain stimuli (usually odors) that allows an animal to better access the information carried through smell. It’s a voluntary response, meaning the animal deliberately exhibits the behavior (as opposed to involuntary responses, such as salivating in response to food or pupils dilating when anxious or stressed).

When a cat is enacting the flehmen response, they will typically hold their mouth open. This allows air to pass through their vomeronasal organ (also called the VNO or Jacobson’s organ).

Here’s a diagram:

Here’s a video of two cats making the flehmen response (aka “stinkface”):

And you can read the Current Biology article by clicking on the screenshot below:

Here’s something new in science papers: a graphical abstract of the results. You can see the structure of the fatty acids (click to enlarge):

This is a good study though the work must have been odiferous! The authors showed not only how individual identification works using a combination of habituation and flehmen-response studies, but also identified the lipids that activated identification by modifying them chemically. Here’s the first paragraph of the discussion:

This study identifies a physiological architecture for durable chemical individuality in felids. Combining behavior, bioassay-guided chemistry, and tissue-level lipid analysis, we show that cats retain donor-specific urinary information across time and that this information resides in stable, behaviorally discriminable BFA compositions supported by a triacylglycerol-rich lipid-droplet reservoir in the renal cortex. Across Felidae, BFA-associated urinary and renal lipid signatures are broadly distributed but diversified in repertoire complexity, renal storage, and apparent urinary release. The central advance is therefore not simply the discovery of unusual urinary lipids but the identification of an organ-level buffering mechanism that stabilizes small-molecule identity cues.

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Lagniappe: Joni and her kitty Bootsy!:

And some lovely minimalist sketches of cats, also via Facebook

h/t: Reese, Ginger K.

Here a woman on Facebook, “CircuitCindy” designs and manufactures a treat-dispensing slot machine for her cat, who catches on quickly. My only question is whether the machine dispenses treats on every pull, regardless of whether the three designs match.  If it does, then the cat will become addicted to gambling.

This is one talented woman, and you can see her website here. Her self ID is this:

Cindy explains in this video that there was a huge demand for these machines (of course), and if you want one you can put your name on a waitlist/information list by clicking on the screenshot below and then clicking on “notify me”.  I’ve signed up, though I don’t have a cat; I will let readers know any updates.

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This article comes from The Washington Post, and reports on a poor kitten stuck in a car’s grille. It was disovered. . . well, I’ll put an excerpt below. Click on screenshot to read:

An excerpt:

On a sweltering day, an unusual call came into Central Iowa Towing and Recovery: A tiny kitten was trapped inside the grille of a car that was in line at a drive-through, and the cat seemed to be suffering.

“I’ve never gotten a call like that in my life,” said Jordan McKnight, 38, an employee at the tow company in Ames.

McKnight and his co-worker Cole Denning rushed to Scooter’s Coffee on July 27 and found people crowded around a car. A woman was in the drive-through line, they said, and after placing her coffee order, said she heard an animal crying from inside her car. She looked around and realized a tiny cat somehow was stuck behind the front grille of her Honda.

“You could hear the cat crying out,” said Kathy Pike, an animal services officer with Ames Animal Shelter, who arrived at the scene after a Scooter’s employee called and reported the situation. “We didn’t know how to get it out. I tried to crawl under and figure out where this little thing got into the small spot.”

A group of people waiting at the drive-through gathered around the car, trying to figure out how to free the cat. The driver of the car, who did not reply to an interview request from The Washington Post, told Pike the cat was not hers, and she did not know how the animal could have gotten into the body of her car.

. . .But they were running out of time to save the cat, who was panting and holding out her bright-red tongue.

“I was almost certain it was not going to make it,” Pike said, noting the 96-degree temperature that day that felt like 118 degrees with the humidity.

Pike was able to get only a few fingers through the grille before deciding she needed help. She called Central Iowa Towing and Recovery, figuring the front of the car would need to be taken apart.

“We rushed over,” Denning said.

Denning and McKnight raised the front of the car off the ground to get a better look underneath.

“We both came to the conclusion that the only possible way to get her out was to disassemble the whole front clip of the car,” McKnight said.

They worked quickly, removing panels around the hood and headlights, until there was enough of an opening for Denning to reach in and scoop the cat out. It took about 15 minutes to free the kitten.

Pike drenched the cat in water to cool her down and brought her directly to the vet.

“I wanted to get her as quickly as possible to the medical experts,” she said.

. . .The kitten, believed to be about 2 months old, is a domestic shorthair. She had a fever and a blister on one paw but was otherwise well after the rescue. She weighs just under two pounds.

Pike named her “Fika,” a Swedish word that describes a coffee break. She thought it was a fitting name.

“We all took a break from our lives to help this animal in need, and it was related to coffee,” she said.

Fika is being cared for at the Ames Animal Shelter and has become a favorite among staff.

Fika is okay, and there was a rush to adopt her. Here’s a news report showing the kitten.

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here

From nicenews.com, we have another area besides Turkey where the residents are cat lovers. This time it’s Dubrovnik, a lovely town in Croatia that I visited in 1972.  Here’s an article and some videos below.

An excerpt:

Coastal Dubrovnik in southeastern Croatia was originally founded over 1,400 years ago, but one demographic that’s been there for centuries had nothing to do with its incorporation. The city is home to a thriving stray cat community, and likely has been since the Middle Ages.

Today, photos of Dubrovnik’s felines are all over social media, and there’s an entire souvenir store dedicated to them in the ancient seaport. Locals and visitors can even take part in the SOS Dubrovnik Cat Safari 2026 this summer, a campaign encouraging people to snap pics of the kitties and share them online. Five winning shots will be selected for a charity postcard collection, with proceeds supporting an animal rescue that helps care for the cats.

But even before they were tourist attractions, the city’s cats played a very important role in its prosperity: pest control. While hard facts about their history are hard to find online, locals refer to the four-legged mainstays as Dubrovnik’s “oldest citizens,” suggesting they were brought there around the 13th century to hunt rats, which were believed to carry the bubonic plague and other diseases.

Indeed, a medieval manuscript from Dubrovnik marked with inky, feline paw prints made headlines over a decade ago. Photographed in 2011 by then-graduate student Emir O. Filipović, the manuscript dates back to the 1400s — capturing a cat quite literally “walk[ing] through history,” as National Geographic put it.

The cats now stick primarily to Dubrovnik’s Old Town, a seafront neighborhood largely encircled by medieval walls that once fortified it against attacks. Visitors list the Church of the Holy Annunciation, a Serbian Orthodox church at the center of the neighborhood, as a prime spot to see them, though they can also be found near restaurant doorways and lounging around the harbor.

, . .“They are very patient and rarely beg; they know that a small fish is usually coming their way as a ‘tax’ for their presence,” reads a post by local company Cava Tours.

Residents care for the kitties, and SOS Dubrovnik Cats, which is based outside of Croatia, assists from afar. The organization collects donations and arranges for medical care and foster homes where injured cats can recuperate.

Here are a few videos about Dubrovnik’s cats from social media. Sound up on all of them

@sightsofsara

come visit the cats of Dubrovnik! #croatia #cats #travel

♬ Love You So – The King Khan & BBQ Show

Click on the screenshot to go to the Instagram page, and put the sound up:

@beautiful.croatiaa

It’s part of Croatian culture /‘fee-yah-kuh’/ 💆🏻‍♀️ Credit @l.zux #nijelako #dubrovnik #summerindubrovnik #croatia #fjaka #uvalalapad #dubrovniklapad #lapadarea #hrvatska #hrvatskadubrovnik #catsofinstagram #catsofdubrovnik #catsdubrovnik #fyp

♬ original sound – beautiful.croatiaa

Finally, lots of lagnaippe today—four items, to be exact. Click on screenshots to go to the originals, but these aren’t videos.

An ancient standoff:

And a ham-guarding moggy:

From Facebook with the caption:

A classic milk bar in Krakow, one of the old canteen-style spots, has a cat named Pierog who patrols the room like a floor manager and sits at the end of the counter watching the pierogi go out. He does not beg. He inspects.

The staff hung a small hand-written Polish sign by the register that reads: “The cat is on duty.” Regulars say he has a route – counter, then the window table, then back – and that he does it in the same order every day. He has never been fed at the counter, on principle, and disapproves of everyone who tries.

Below: from Fat Cat Art with the following caption:

The famous Belle Époque ad poster of a black cat sipping absinthe was created in 1902 by the renowned industrial designers Mourgue Frères (brothers) for the Bourgeois distillery in the French town of Pontarlier. They say there was no absinthe in the glass, but milk, to make the cat pose for the poster. The artwork was so popular that it is used as decoration in many bars and homes till nowadays. The story behind the poster is a hilarious cat art story. The cat’s surroundings are heavily based on a painting by Charles Maine, a local artist of the Pontarlier region. Maine’s painting depicted a table with an absinthe bottle, a decanter of water, glasses, and a folded copy of a Pontarlier newspaper. The painting was very popular and used for Émile Pernot distillery advertising. Evidently, Mourgue Frères, ironically remade the painting, including the cat, to beat the Bourgeois distillery’s competitors! And they succeeded with their art, which became much more popular than the original painting. Cats make everything better!

Interesting that you can still find the cat in advertising, but now on their former competitor’s heirs, Les Fils d’Émile Pernot’s absinthe bottle label

h/t: Ginger K., Loretta

Okay we’ll have a Caturday this week, but we’ll see about forthcoming weeks. If you have a cat-related item for me to consider, by all means send it along.

First, we have an eight-minute video of a real “cat lady”, who has over a thousand moggies. She’s turned her house into a sanctuary/rescue center/adoption center, so that’s not so “crazy.” They’ve saved 28,000 cats.

You can read more about “The Cat House on the Kings” by clicking on the link below:

Here’s a seven-minute video of a day in the life of the Cat House on the Kings:

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As you must know by now, Larry the Cat, the Chief Mouser to the Cabinet Office, turned nineteen, and has been at 10 Downing Street for 15 years, serving under seven Prime Ministers. Still he abides. Here’s a video of Larry “causing mischief,” though not everything it shows is “mischief”.

And here’s a short video of Larry chasing a rather emaciated fox from Downing Street. He may be a poor mouser and bad at catching birds, but he’s good at chasing off d*gs and other canids.

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Now it’s time to learn some cat evolution by reading about Proailurus, the earliest known “true cat” (i.e., an animal placed in the family Felidae). We find its fossils from about 30 million years ago, and you can read about it in this article by Will Newton from Discover Wildlife. It may have been the common ancestor of all cats today, but I consider that unlikely; it was probably related to the ancestor of all living felids, but finding THE “missing cat link” would be nearly impossible. But it does show us what a very early felid was like.

Click the screenshot to read.

A few excerpts (indented):

What was Proailurus?

Proailurus is an extinct cat that lived in Europe and Asia from the Late Oligocene (30 million years ago) to the Early Miocene (25 million years ago). It’s widely considered to be the first ‘true’ cat and the ancestor of the entire cat family, which includes everything from extinct sabre toothed cats to living lions, tigers, and leopards.

Proailurus is known from three different species, two of which – P.lemanensis and P.bourbonnensis – were roughly the size as a house cat, weighing in at 7-10kg. The third species, P.major, is thought to have been more than twice as large, but it’s only known from a single specimen and, as a result, is shrouded in mystery.

What did Proailurus look like?

Looking somewhat like a miniature cougar, Proailurus had a lengthy, low-slung back, relatively short limbs and a long, flexible tail. These features suggest it lived an arboreal lifestyle, hunting, resting, and perhaps even playing high up in the tree canopy. It may have also hunted on the ground, just like the modern Geoffroy’s cat (Leopardus geoffroyi).

This bodyplan and arboreal behaviour bears remarkable similarity to the fossa (Cryptoprocta ferox) – a cat-like predator found only on Madagascar.

. . . Where did Proailurus live?

The first remains of Proailurus were described in 1879 by French naturalist Henri Filhol who found a handful of small, cat-like fossils at a site in Saint-Gérand-le-Puy, Central France.

Since this discovery in the late 19th century, fossils of Proailurus have been unearthed in neighbouring Spain and Germany and, surprisingly, Mongolia. This suggests Proailurus had a very wide range and occupied a niche that had very few, if any major competitors.

Several fossils believed to belong to Proailurus, or at least a Proailurus-like animal, have been found in North America, including the famous Ginn Quarry cat. This specimen is represented by a complete skull, which has dentition very similar to the type species (P.lemanensis) originally described by Filhol.

The jury’s still out on whether the Ginn Quarry cat was truly a Proailurus, but its discovery suggests that cats – or at least cat-like animals – had already dispersed from Eurasia into North America, establishing a lineage that, millions of years later, would give rise to some of the largest cats that ever lived.

What did Proailurus originate from?

Proailurus is widely considered the first ‘true’ cat and the basal member of a family known as Felidae. This furry family is nestled within a larger mammalian order known as Carnivora, which includes everything from cats and dogs, to bears,mustelids, hyenas, and seals.

The origins of Carnivora can be traced back to the Early Eocene, roughly 52 million years ago and just 12 million years after the extinction event that wiped the non-avian dinosaurs from the face of the Earth.

The earliest carnivorans would have resembled small weasels or genets and, like many living carnivorans, would have likely been nocturnal. From these small, stealthy predators, two large sub-groups emerged: the feliforms and the caniforms.

While the caniforms diversified into an astonishing array of shapes and lifestyles (just look at how different skunks are from walruses, for example), the feliforms largely retained a sleek, agile body plan and exhibited far less diversity in terms of their morphology, diet, and behaviour.

And it’s from Feliformia that Proailurus, and its lineage Felidae, eventually emerged 30 million years ago.

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Lagniappe: Several items today, starting with this Facebook entry about a cat image being used to sell gin (see the text below the photo):

I’ve often shown medieval images of cats, asserting that for some reason artists of that era simply couldn’t draw even a decent moggy. Here’s a FB video showing some pathetic attempts to paint or draw cats. You can see more here and even more in the panoply of hilarious images at the Google Search page for “medieval cat paintings.”

This statue of Alice in Wonderland was photographed by Jean Greenberg in Central Park.  It shows two cats: Alice’s cat “Dinah” on her leg and the Cheshire Cat over her shoulder (see below).

h/t: Jean G., Ginger K.

We have three cat-related items today, and a bit of lagniappe.

From Facebook’s F’d Up Facts (note that the image is AI):

And the information attached to it:

At the Glenturret whiskey distillery in Scotland, there was a cat named Towser. She was a long-haired tortoiseshell. Her job was to keep the place free of mice.  She did her job very well. In fact, she was the best mouser in the world. Over 24 years, she is believed to have killed 28,899 mice. That’s about 3 mice every day for her entire career. The Guinness Book of Records officially recognizes her record. She became a legend in the distillery. A statue was even put up to h…

I found this video on Facebook (below) and investigated further:

It’s the story of a cat named Riley who became the “village cat” of the town of Ambleside in Cumbria, and was so beloved that she’s remembered with a statue.  You can see the story at the BBC article below (archived here) and at the Westmoreland Gazette site (second headline).  Click screenshots to read the story of Riley.

From the BBC:

A statue has been unveiled of cat found in a snowstorm and later adopted by a town.

Riley, who died in January, was discovered in Ambleside, Cumbria, in 2011 and became a regular face there over the years.

More than £4,000 was raised to create the bronze figure as a way to remember her.

It was made by Cumbrian artist David Cemmick, and will be located in Millans Park, in the spot where she spent most of her time lying in the sun.

Laszlo Papp, who organised the online fundraiser, said: “She never really went into anyone’s home, she was no-one’s pet but also everyone’s”.

He said she was found on an “especially cold day” and he thought she had been abandoned.

Because she was “only little”, he felt sorry for her and started to feed her.

He added tourists and locals all looked after Riley, and it was a “big sadness for everyone” when she died.

A photo of Riley and her bronze statue credited to Laszlo Papp:

From the Gazette:

The statue will be unveiled on the garden wall of No1 Millans Park, which is where she used to sit, and people would visit her.

There will also be a blue plaque commemoration. The unveiling will be at midday on June 21.

Riley was known by other names in the community, such as the Millans Park Cat and The Dodd’s Cat.

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The YouTube site Latent Creations has several AI-generated cat songs, and we’ve featured one before. Here’s a new one about someone stepping in fresh cat poop; it’s called “You stepped in it.” It must take a lot of work to do this; note that the cat mouths the lyrics properly. (All cat owners are familiar with this experience—either that or stepping in cat vomit.)

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Here’s another beloved cat who recently passed away: this one, a long-haired orange tomcat, died at 19. Curiously, Nutmeg loved to hang out in the local CVS store (an American pharmacy chain).  An evil local tried to get Nutmeg booted out of the store, but I gather it didn’t work.

You can read Nutmeg’s story by clicking the headline below from The Oregonian:

From the paper:

A beloved cat who was dubbed the “unofficial mayor of Sellwood” has died, his owner said.

In a Saturday Facebook post, Gabi Moore, the owner of Nutmeg, a cat known for frequenting the CVS at Southeast 17th Avenue and Tacoma Street, wrote that the 19-year-old feline had died.

“He led a beautiful, full life, and he’ll forever be remembered by so many people who got to know him and love him,” Gabi Moore wrote

In a Saturday phone call with The Oregonian/OregonLive, Gabi Moore said that she and her husband, Joe, were glad that they could spend Nutmeg’s last years with him.

“It means a lot to us that we were able to give him his retirement life,” Gabi Moore said. “He really fulfilled his purpose in his life here by touching the lives of so many people.”

In May, community members rallied around the elderly cat after someone filed a complaint against Nutmeg with CVS’ corporate offices. Residents circulated a petition in support of their furry friend and sent messages to the pharmacy chain’s customer-service team online.

Age-wise, Nutmeg was literally off the charts. A cat age chart on Chewy.com, an online retailer of pet supplies, tops out at 16, which the site says translates to about 87 for a human. At 19, Nutmeg would’ve been pushing 100.

Nutmeg’s fans mourned his passing in the comments on Moore’s post.

“Devastating news, but grateful to have known this incredible feline who captured the hearts of the neighborhood,” Catherine Pollock-Robinson wrote.

Angela Thompson wrote that she was one of the residents who wrote CVS customer service in support of Nutmeg.

“I was proud to see Nutmeg at my visits. Always gave me a positive purpose for picking up yet another Rx to chase my failing body’s needs,” Thompson wrote. “Our precious animal babies provide us with an elevated life experience and must be honored.”

Elise Friedrich wrote that she met Nutmeg for the first time two weeks ago while out on a walk.

“I had seen so many posts about him on this group and he definitely lived up to the hype. So friendly and enchanting. Walked right up to greet us as we approached the CVS block,” Friedrich wrote. “Thank you for your service, Mr. Mayor, you will be truly missed.”

Here’s a news report about Nutmeg:

The customer who claimed about Nutmeg is BAD. Nutmeg loved being inside, and was even considered an employee.  I have no patience for the complainer.

An earlier video about Nutmeg, made when he was still alive.

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Lagniappe:  This is true, and you can read some of Li You’s cat poems here.

Here’s one poem translated by by writer Xiran Jay Zhao:

h/t: Marion

From Cats.com we have a list of world records set by cats. And you know they’re right because they’re validated by Guinness!

Click below to see the records. I’ll present five, and go to the site to see the rest:

Excerpts (indented):

Ludo, a cat who lives in the UK, measures an astonishing 3 feet and 10.6 inches long [JAC: 118.33 cm]! Not surprisingly, he is a Maine Coon, a breed of larger cats. Ludo made the Guinness World Records 2017 Edition. Kelsey Gill of Wakefield, England, got the Maine Coon after she fell in love with the big tabby cats in the Harry Potter movies.

Ludo, a Maine Coon who lives with his owner Kelsey Gill in Wakefield, UK, is the Longest domestic cat (living), measuring an astonishing 118.33 cm

And a video of Ludo (the Guinness verification is here):

Another:

In June 2020, a super-smart tortoiseshell named Alexis in Austria performs 26 tricks – including a high five, waving paws, and shaking her head – in one minute! The cat’s owner, Anika Moritz, said she started training the cat just a few weeks after she got her as a kitten. You can watch Alexis in action here and read Moritz’ story about training with positive reinforcement.

The Guinness record is here, and below you can see Alexis doing her repertoire, though some of the tricks look dubious!

This is a good one:

It’s anyone’s guess how the cat and owner pulled this bizarre one off: Bibi, a white and black domestic shorthair cat in Malaysia, carried 10 stacked dice on a steady paw for at least a few seconds in 2017. Bibi’s human, Siew Lianchui, must have done some funky training to make this happen.

The Guinness record is here.  And here’s Bibi holding cards. (Is he anesthetized?)

Finally, a long-jumping moggy:

Under the training of Melissa Arleth, an American cat named Sputnik jumped 7 feet 6 inches on the set of the show Lo Show Dei Record in Milan, Italy. That happened recently – in February 2024. That’s quite a leap!

The Guinness record is here, and adds this:

Oscar is owner by Theodore Shiells (USA). He is a 7 year old rescue cat and was only given a 50:50 chance of survival when they took him in.

He’s described as a very smart cat who likes learning tricks. Theodore started training him to jump two years ago, and they were eventually able to beat the previous record by over 25 cm!

And here’s Sputnik performing in the Cirque du Sewer:

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I found this on Bluesky and wanted it to be real.  I checked around and, despite accusations, could find nothing definite. Until an hour ago, when I found what’s below the meme.

I would kill or die for Larry

— Jon Phillips (@jowiph.bsky.social) 2026-07-03T22:50:21.122Z

From Grok:

The post comes from the Cat Overlords Facebook page (posted July 2, 2026) and includes a funny text graphic/meme that basically says:
“TRUFFLE DOG FINDS THE TRUFFLES — ‘TRAINEE’ CAT DIGS RANDOM HOLES AND FINDS DIRT.”

facebook.com

It’s pure cat energy: zero clue what the actual job is, but 100% committed to looking busy and important.Why It’s Going Viral

• Thousands of reactions (mostly “Haha”), hundreds of shares.
• People are loving it in the comments — calling Larry the emotional support cat, the team supervisor, the spore-spreader for next year’s crop, or just “emphatically on the team” no matter what the handler says.
• It’s spreading to X/Twitter, Mastodon, Reddit, etc., with people sharing the same story and adding their own jokes.

This isn’t a breaking story from major news outlets (yet) — it’s classic wholesome internet cat content based on a real (or at least very convincingly told) anecdote from an Oregon truffle hunter.No widely available photos or videos of the actual Larry in action turned up in searches (just the text post + meme graphic), but the mental image of a confident cat aggressively digging useless holes while the dog does the real work is comedy gold.Want me to dig deeper for any updates, related truffle-hunting videos, or similar cat chaos stories? Just say the word!

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A reader sent this, and I liked the song, which is clearly AI-generated. I can has music? Ladies and gentlement, brothers and sisters, and comrades: “Dead Mouse Delivery”:

Normally, I avoid AI posts. This one is true and funny to me. Cat sings about gifting his ungrateful human.
Enjoy! 🤭 pic.twitter.com/hAS0s3kSbH

— Bluegrasspatriot (@kylawndog) July 8, 2026

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Lagniappe: If you don’t recognize this, go here.

More Lagniappe: A Pennsylvania library with five cats on its staff, from FB. All libraries and bookstores should have resident cats; for some reason, cats and books go together. You can see a lot more about these cats, including Princess Buttercup, at the Cupboard Maker Books site.

Even MORE lagniappe!:

h/t: Nicole, Merilee, Su