New Cat Breed, Selkirk Rex, Genetically Different from Other Curly-Haired Cats

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/10/121030161410.htm

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it should come as no surprise that pet owners and animal breeders are frequently attracted by curly-haired animals. Indeed, three curly-haired varieties of cat are already recognized and have been developed into competitive breeds. Serina Filler at the University of Veterinary Medicine, Vienna now shows that a fourth curly-haired breed, Selkirk Rex, is genetically distinct from previously known breeds and presents a genetic analysis of the new cats.

Her results are published in the current issue of the Journal of Heredity.

In 1987, a domestic cat rescued from a shelter in Montana, USA surprisingly gave birth to a curly-haired kitten. The kitten ended up mating with a Persian male and giving birth to a mixture of curly-haired and normal-haired kittens, which strongly suggested that the mutation in the rescued cat was dominant in nature: its presence on one of the two copies of the gene involved is sufficient to cause cats to have curly hair. The curly-haired kittens were attractive and were soon recognized as a new breed: the Selkirk Rex.

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Filler's results confirm that the Selkirk Rex breed arose from a spontaneous mutation in a single cat around 25 years ago. As the mutation is dominant it has been comparatively easy to retain and the breed appears to have a healthy level of genetic diversity because of the number of crosses with other breeds.