Rescued from Cairo: Mo

edgarthecat

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Here's little Mo. She came live with us in the first week of the lockdown. She's rescued from the streets of Cairo and arrived just before the travel bans.

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She's a helper cat. Follows me around constantly, even when I'm in the loo she wants to check out what I'm doing. She's quite vocal and very sociable. She always comes running from wherever in the house when I call her name. She's not so much of a lap cat, more of a 'half on my face and half on the sofa' cat and comes asking to pick her up every other hour or so for cuddles. She plays a lot, is very energetic. After playing she loves laying between me and my partner when we're watching TV and only stops purring when we're off to bed.
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What do you think? Mau mix or no Mau mix?
 

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Maurey

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Mo is such a pretty cat! I'd describe her as a spotted (over mackerel) brown tabby with a cold background. While it's true that Egyptian Maus are one of the only domestic cat breeds that come in spotted tabby (others include the Australian Mist and Maine Coon), they're a very rare breed.

While it's quite possible that Mo is somehow related to the founding cats that were used to develop the Egyptian Mau breed given her pattern , it's unlikely she's got a pedigree cat from the developed breed in her ancestry. Unlike dogs, cat breeds are a recent occurrence and most breeders are responsible about who their queens and studs mate with, and what happens with their kittens. Because of this, mixes are rare, and most cats will not have distinct breed ancestry.

Spotting is a dominant gene that overlays the existing tabby and affects the pattern in which the spots are positioned. Because of this wouldn't surprise me if there are a lot of spotted tabby strays living in Cairo (given that the Mau is developed from Egyptian cats), even if they're fairly rare in other parts of the world.
 

lutece

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While it's quite possible that Mo is somehow related to the founding cats that were used to develop the Egyptian Mau breed given her pattern , it's unlikely she's got a pedigree cat from the developed breed in her ancestry.
I'd agree with this.

The Egyptian Mau breed was developed from Egyptian foundation cats that were very similar to Mo. In addition, the Egyptian Mau breed still accepts new foundation cats like Mo that have documented Egyptian origin, as long as they are similar enough to the breed standard in type and pattern. It's possible that Mo may share some ancestry with foundation cats used in the Egyptian Mau breed, especially since she comes from Cairo. However, it's not likely that she has pedigree cats of this breed in her family tree, since even in Egypt, the developed breed is very rare.
 
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edgarthecat

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So Mo could be a proto-Mau! :p What I understood is that the Mau pedigree is only established in the 1950s. So they kept on breeding with a couple of specific specimens which led to the foundation of the Mau pedigree.
 

lutece

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So Mo could be a proto-Mau! :p What I understood is that the Mau pedigree is only established in the 1950s. So they kept on breeding with a couple of specific specimens which led to the foundation of the Mau pedigree.
I like your term "proto-Mau"! :)

Yes, the established Egyptian Mau breed (like most cat breeds) is fairly recent... and also like most cat breeds, it started with a relatively small number of foundation cats. Breeders do continue to import cats from Egypt to add genetic diversity to the breed, however.
 
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