Around the tail of the Khmer Cat

In Cambodia the local indigenous cat is appreciated by many. They can share the flats in the capital city where they are treated as pets, or the rural houses of the county side villages where they are more functional. Practically they always originate from stray cats that have conquered humans with their gentle and social behavior. There are different narratives which substantiate a more or less ancient and noble origin, while based on anthropological observation they are key to some traditional customs and worshipping. They are characterized by several peculiar features which occur with variable frequencies in the observed subjects. Since 2011 an attempt was done to select some subjects and to breed them in order to have progenies who express all the desired characteristics. So far this breeding program has reached the third generation and the process for registering these population as a breed has started in Italy (Khmer cat). Investigations on the morphology of the tail and on its inheritance has been carried out. More than 5 fancy breeds are bred worldwide having in their standard the “short tail”: Manx, Japanese Bobtail, Kurilian Bobtail, American Bobtail and Pixie Bob. In order to characterize the Khmer, a three generations familiar group (seven ancestors) of 73 Khmer cats segregating bob tails and other tails “abnormalities” was reconstructed. Nor litter size nor occurrences of abortions, newborn defects or deaths were available or reported, therefore a lethal effect linked to the character was not assessable. The cats were categorized by palpation and XRay analysis of the backbone and tail. As reported in Japanese bobtail, the transmission of the character “short tail” was consistent with a dominant inheritance with variable expression, ranging from anural through short-pompom and short-strait tail. Genetic and/or not genetic modifier factors were strongly suspected. Genetic profiling was performed for parentage control. XRay showed tail abnormalities. Out of the familiar group a large subset of cats were analyzed to genotype the known causative mutations of the feline bob tail. The data available so far exclude that Khmer share the same mutations described in Manx cat.