MANX

Isle of Man
1996

The Manx Cat, from the Isle of Man, is one of the oldest breeds of domestic cat, and an assortment of fanciful legends have grown up during its long history:

• The Manx Cat is the result of mating between domestic cats and rabbits. (This accounts not only for the reduced tail, but the strange hopping gait caused by its unusually long back legs.)
• A pair of Manx Cats insisted on one last mousing trip even as the flood waters rose around Noah’s Ark. At the last possible moment they rushed on board, just as Noah was closing the door. The heavy door slammed shut on their beautiful busy tails and severed them. They were saved from the flood, but their tails were lost forever.
• Mother Manx Cats bit off the tails of their kittens when they were born to save them from Viking invaders who stole and killed them, using their tails to adorn their helmets.
• Samson was swimming close to the Isle of Man when he was caught by a cat which nearly drowned him with its long tail. To defend himself, he severed the tail and from that day onward, the cats of the Isle of Man had no tails.
• A feudal lord increased his revenues by taxing cats’ tails. The population of the Isle of Man rebelled against the tax by cutting off the tails of all their cats.

The Manx is a study in contradictions -- quiet but active, shy but friendly, witty but reserved, clever but trusting. There is a problem in that the Manx gene is semi-lethal. If a Rumpy Cat (no tail at all) is mated with another Rumpy, the kittens will die. There can never be a true-breeding Manx Cat as a tailless Manx may only mate successfully with a partially tailed or fully tailed Manx.