Somali (cat) - Breed History

Breed History

Due to the loss of many Abyssinians during World War II, cats of unknown background were used to rebuild the breed and it is likely that cats carrying the recessive longhair gene made their way into the breeding population then. The introduction of the longhair gene may be much earlier as of the 12 cats registered in 1905 by the National Cat Club, all had at least one parent of unknown origin. Some though believe that the longhaired Abyssinians were the result of a spontaneous mutation rather than an expression of the recessive longhair gene.

The first cats of this type were longhairs that appeared in litters of Abyssinian kittens. In the 1940s, a British breeder named Janet Robertson exported some normal Abyssinian kittens to Australia, New Zealand, and North America. Descendants of these cats occasionally produced kittens with long or fuzzy coats, and in 1963, Mary Mailing, a breeder from Canada, entered one into a local pet show. Ken McGill, the show's judge, asked for one to breed from.

An American Abyssinian breeder Evelyn Mague, also received longhairs from her cats, which she named "Somalis". Don Richings, another Canadian breeder, used kittens from McGill, and began to work with Mague. The first Somali recognized as such by a fancier organization was Mayling Tutsuta, on of McGill's cats. As of the late 1970s, the Somali was fully accepted in North America. The new breed was accepted in Europe in the 1980s. By 1991, the breed was broadly (though not universally) accepted internationally.