|
|
Cornish Rex
The Cornish Rex is a medium sized shorthaired
cat.
The body is rather elongated. Bone structure is fine, but the cats are
surprisingly heavy. The cats are very muscular, the muscles are hard
and firm to touch.
The chest is full and deep. The back rises to the back like in the Greyhound.
The legs are long and slender, and very muscular. The front legs
are straight and standing rather close together, when viewed from the
front.
The paws are narrow having an oval shape, the toes are quite long and
arched.
The tail is thin and very long, tapering to the tail tip.
The head of the Cornish Rex is long.
The cheekbones are high set. The forehead and the top of the head are
relatively flat.
The nose is long and straight.
The muzzle is fine and not very broad. Whiskers and eye brows are
crinkled. The tip of the nose and the chin form a vertical line.
The eyes are described differently in the various standards, they
should be oval or almond in shape. In reality they look rather
rounded. The eye color may be any color, the cats may have all eye
colors. Cats with a Siamese pattern have blue eyes.
The ears are very large, very long and very wide and open at the
base. The lower part of the auricle is noticeable arched and
prominent.
The ears are placed relatively close together and set upright on the
skull.
The coat of the cats is very special, it is curled.
The coat is short, very fine and dense. It is very soft and pleasing
to touch, because the coat has almost no awn hairs.
The coat has little undercoat, but it is quite dense. The special
feature of this coat are the narrow curls, as if it would have been
waved by a special comb. The curls are lying very close to the body
that one can feel the skin only when the coat is parted.
 |
The coat is densely
curled on the entire body, on the head, also on the legs and the
tail. |
All colors and patterns
The Cornish Rex may have all colors and patterns:
 | white |
| black, blue chocolate, lilac, red, cream, cinnamon, fawn |
| tortoise, blue-cream, chocolate tortie, lilac tortie,
cinnamon tortie, fawn tortie |
| with all tabby patterns, for example black spotted, red mackerel,
blue-cream blotched, and so on. |
| with silver or with golden, for example blue smoke, tortie
smoke, blue-cream smoke, black golden shaded, blue golden mackerel,
red silver blotched, chocolate tortie silver spotted, cream silver
mackerel, and so on. |
| with white (Bicolor, Van, etc.), for example black-white bicolor,
red-white Van, tortie mackerel bicolor, cream smoke with white,
black silver blotched bicolor, and so on. |
| also in Colourpoint, with white and without white, silver or
golden pointed, tabby pointed, and so on. |
Origin
The first Cornish Rex cats were born on 21.07.1950 in a litter of a tortie
and white domestic cat, named Serena and owned by Mrs. Nina Ennismore and Ms Winifred Macalister
of Bodmin Moor, in Cornwall
(England). Five kittens were born, one red and white male had an
unusually curled coat. The boy was called Kallibunker. All Cornish Rex
can trace back their origin to Kallibunker.
Kallibunker was crossed back to his mother Serena on the advice of the
geneticist Mr AC Jude. Three kittens were born on 25.08.1952, one girl
with straight hairs and two boys with curled coat. One boy, named Poldhu,
survived and was crossed with other domestic cats.
As Mrs. Ennismore got into financial problems in 1956 due to so many
cats, the breeding program was continued by Brian Stirling-Webb with a
cream-white male, called Sham Pain Chas, born on 05.06.1955,
half-brother to LaMorna Cove.
In
1957 the blue female, named LaMorna Cove, born on 15.08.1954 in a
litter from Kallibunker, was exported to the US. LaMorna Cove was
pregnant from Poldhu. Two kittens from her litter, Marmaduke of
Dazzling and Diamond Lil of Fan-T-Cee, became the foundation cats of
the
Cornish Rex in the U.S.A.
A blue male, from the third generation after Kallibunker, named Rio
Vista Kismet from the cattery of Mrs. Jeanne Jeffrey, Calgary in Canada,
was imported back to England by Mrs. Alison Ashford in 1965.
In the early times different breeds were used in the Cornish Rex, but
the curled coat was always passed on. Thus, many colors and patterns,
but also the vigor healthiness of the breed were created.
In 1964 the breed was recognized for championship by CFA.
In
1965 the breed was recognized for Provisional Status by GCCF, and in
1967 it was recognized for championship.
In
1986 also the Colorpoint pattern (Si-Rex) was recognized in the U.S.A.
In May 1964 the English
Rex Cat Club,
member of GCCF,
was founded by Madge Shrouder-May (cattery Hassan) and Agnes Watts (cattery
Du-Bu).
From where was the name 'Rex' derived?
The Rex cats are named after the Rex-rabbits, which also have a
short and curled coat.
King Albert of Belgium exhibited his rabbits in 1890, which had an
unusually curled coat. And thus the new breed was named 'Rex' after
the king. Rex means king in Latin.
Genetics
Cornish Rex were born due to a natural mutation.
According to Roy Robinson Cornish Rex, Devon Rex and Selkirk Rex are
genetically different,
Article from 08.06.1971:
'New data demonstrate that the Cornish and German Rex mutants are
either identical or are phenotypically closely similar alleles at the
same locus. The Devon rex is definitely independent of Cornish and it
seems probable that the Oregon rex is independent of Cornish and
Devon.'
In
Genetica, Publisher Springer Netherlands, ISSN 0016-6707 (Print)
1573-6857 (Online), Volume 42, Number 4 / December, 1971, DOI
10.1007/BF00122078
In Robinson's Genetics for Cat Breeders & Veterinarians,
4th edition, published by REPP Ltd., 1999, ISBN 0 7506 4069 3, the
following naming convention is suggested:
| for Cornish Rex the letter r, recessive inheritance |
| for Devon Rex the letter re, recessive inheritance |
| German Rex seems to be an allele of the Cornish Rex |
| for Oregon Rex the letter ro, recessive inheritance,
has probably died out |
| for Selkirk Rex the letter Se, dominant inheritance |
Test mating between Devon Rex and Cornish Rex has shown, that
both are different. Kittens with straight hairs were born,
heterozygous for both Loci (Rr Rere).
Test mating between Cornish Rex and German Rex produced Rex-kittens.
| A new breed with curled coat, the LaPerm, originating from Oregon
in 1982, as the result of a spontaneous mutation. The letter Lp was
suggested. The curled coat is inherited dominantly. |
One must wait, what the results of the
DNA-studies of Dr. Leslie Lyons will show concerning the subject
of Rexing.
© katzenzeitung 2/2007 |
|
|
