Playful, even doglike, your little Manx kitten delights you with his antics. His cute, tailless appearance adds to his charm. His ancestors similarly charmed their owners over hundreds of years.
For centuries, sailors docked at the Isle of Man, where native island cats and ship cats mingled and mated. Observers reported seeing both longhaired and shorthaired tailless cats as far back as 300 years ago. Legend also has it that the painter Joseph Turner claimed to own seven cats from the Isle of Man.
The cats eventually made their way to North America, and the breed attracted the attention of the cat fancy almost from the beginning. Stud books from the late 1920s list Manx, and the shorthaired version of the breed sustained its popularity at shows. Longhaired Manx were shown under the name Cymric until 1994, when the Cat Fanciers Association gave the Cymric longhair Manx status. The coat length is the only difference between the longhair and shorthair Manx.
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