My sister-in-law has just adopted a cat-it is a tomcat,with an interesting mutation-it has doublepaws in front! He looks like he has oversized thumbs!
Is this a common mutation in cats? Why wouldsomething like this happen ?
For the record, he is extremely friendly.
Polydactyls. It’s not uncommon. I have a kitty (Henry) with big obscene “gropies” (that’s what our family calls them). Thumb-like feet. 6 toes (or more) in front, and 5 in back. (Cats usually have only 4 toes in back.) Henry is a big orange teddy bear—sweet and cuddly and with HUGE FEET!!!
Just put in “polydactyl” in Google, and see what comes up. There are all sorts of websites about these adorable cats. (Well, I think they are adorable—our family has had a series of polydactyl cats throughout the years.)
Some people have taken to breeding polydactyls, which is creepy, if you ask me. Their feet get really wonky and twisty and too mutated.
Even in our archives: http://www.straightdope.com/mailbag/m6toecat.html
There are seven toed cats, too. ANECTDOTE AHEAD: They were thought of as good luck on sailing ships, and can today be found concentrated at port cities. Key West’s Hemingway House has a bunch.
I have one with the more-or-less-standard-for-a-polydact 22 toes. Clipping time is really a pain in the butt, let me tell you.
He’s so cute, though. He uses his thumbs for extra balance and maneuverability. I think he’s working on how to operate the doorknob.
One of our clients at my old job had a cat with 9 toes on each front paw, and 6 on each back paw. The back feet just looked like he was wearing boxing gloves, but the front ones looked like he had two full paws on each leg. He was adorable, though.
My cat is also, as we affectionately call him, a mutant. He has 7 toes on one front foot and 6 on the other. The back two feet have 4 and 5 toes, respectively. He doesn’t seem to use his extra toes in any special way, although they do add a little extra impact when he has to thwap the playful-but-doesn’t-know-his-own-strength dog across the nose.
The boyfriend of one of the RAs in my dorm building brought this kitten in to visit a few weeks ago, it was a polydactyl. Didnt’ check the back feet, but he had an extra toe on each front foot that made him look like he had thumbs. We had him on the front counter playing with the ball from the foozball table, and he was using his extra toes to really wrap his paws around the ball. I did some research on this after seeing this adorable kitty - it’s not completely unusual, it seems.
They’re fairly common in New England (likewise for many seacoast areas, I’m sure.) My grammie’s cat, Eartha Kitty, was a double paw, and my friend’s Sid Not Vicious is a triple paw.