By Stacy N. Hackett
Dense. Compact. Strong. These words — along with "tailless" — commonly come up in conversations about the Cymric, the longhaired cousin to the Manx.
"My sister calls her kitten a cantaloupe with legs," says Catherine Roso, a breeder from Anchorage, Alaska. "No other cat in the cat fancy has the combination of heavy body, dense coat, strong head and ear set within such a compact package."
That compact package has been around the cat fancy for many years, with the Manx appearing at cat shows as early as 1920. Although many legends surround the breed's origin, the consensus is that the Manx and Cymric originated on the Isle of Man in the Irish Sea. When the genetic mutation for the cat's distinctive tailless trait appeared years ago in a litter, it was passed to multiple generations due to the isolated island environment.
**Get the September 2010 issue of CAT FANCY to read the full article.**