Recently we saw a photo doing the rounds on the internet of a curly-haired orange kitten.
What fascinated everyone was that they’ve never seen a cat with curls before, it looks like it had just had a perm.
But the curls were all natural and were the cause of a genetic defect, and we managed to track down the origin of this, see all below:
This is the original photo that did the rounds.
This caused a wave of people to start sharing photos of cats that have curly hair, which are commonly known as Selkirk Rex.
The origin of these can be traced to a peculiar rescue cat that had the name Miss DePesto.
This kitty was born back in 1987 in a shelter in Montana and had 4 siblings, all of them who had straight hair.
When a breeder adopted her, she found out that the curls are caused due to a genetic feature unique only to this cat.
She then bred it with a black Persian cat and they had six babies, which all had curly hair.
Because of this, the breed Selkirk Rex, named after the stepfather of the woman, came into existence.
The ‘Rex’ in the name was added to depict the curly and furry nature of the cat.
Who knew a whole breed of cat could have evolved from a single stray with a genetic defect!
