Miscellaneous desk
< April 13	<< Mar \| April \| May >>	April 15 >

Welcome to the Wikipedia Miscellaneous Reference Desk Archives
The page you are currently viewing is a transcluded archive page. While you can leave answers for any questions shown below, please ask new questions on one of the current reference desk pages.

April 14[edit]

Why are Singapura cats so small? Was it due to a mutation, or were they breed with smaller breeds, which gave them their own size?[edit]

On the page List of Cat Breeds, it says that the Singapura cat is a cross an Abyssinian and a Burmese. If they were a cross between those two breeds, they would be medium-sized. If they were a crossbreed, the munchkin cat would be excluded, because they would have the dachshund-like body.

This means that they are a mutation, or are they?

Answermeplease11 (talk) 14:14, 14 April 2021 (UTC) Answermeplease11[reply]

The process of creating a specific trait in a group of animals is called Selective breeding, and it is not as simple as taking one animal from two different groups and breeding them together once. Traits like size are likely to be controlled by a LARGE number of genes, and breeding a cat (or any other animal) to be a certain size takes many generations. Read the article I linked above to learn more about the process. --Jayron 32 17:02, 14 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]

But still, is the Singapura cat a mutation, or a crossbreed? And what are the two different groups of cats your talking about?

Answermeplease11 (talk) 19:04, 14 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Any two. —Tamfang (talk) 01:13, 15 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]

So, the deal is, many of the questions as to the ancestry of the Singapura cat can be answered by reading the Wikipedia article on Singapura cat. I won't insult you by reprinting the exact text of the article, but I will say that several of the statements you made regarding the ancestry of the cat and the specific breeds that are in that ancestry, are not borne out by the text. There's some nuance there you are missing in your question; you should perhaps read the article. --Jayron 32 11:59, 15 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]

If Snowshoe cats are basically reverse Siamese cats, does this mean that they are as old as the Siamese cat?[edit]

If snowshoes are basically Siamese cats, were they ever mentioned in the Treatise on Cats (Tamra Maew)? If they weren’t, could they have possibly existed back then, but became extinct at a certain point? Also, what cat breeds were mentioned in the Treatise on Cats (Tamra Maew)?

Answermeplease11 (talk) 21:49, 14 April 2021 (UTC) Answermeplease11[reply]

There is no direct way of identifying the types of cats described in the Tamra Miaow with current breeds; while a cat somewhat resembling the Siamese is described, it is thought to bear more resemblance to the Thai cat. It is possible that natural mutations occurring in recent times have also occurred earlier, but no one may have paid much attention or thought of it in terms of selective breeding potential. --Lambiam 01:08, 15 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]