Hieroglyphic Cats from Ancient Crete

We stumbled upon an interesting little tidbit earlier this week. At first we didn’t even believe it and thought it must be one of those alternative facts that are so easy to find on the internet. But a little digging brought us to some reputable sources, so we are ready to tell you that the so-called Cretan Hieroglyphic writing system (not related to the more famous Egyptian hieroglyphs) included pictures of cats. This system, from the Mediterranean island of Crete, arose around 2000 BC. It has not been deciphered, so no one is 100% sure what the cat pictures mean—but there is a guess at the end of this post!

Just where is Crete? Follow the red arrow. The island
is roughly southeast of mainland Greece.
Image via Adobe Stock.

The cat pictures

Seal of green jasper with Cretan Hieroglyphic writing
including a stylized cat's head.
Photo by Ingo Pini [Public domain], from Wikimedia Commons.

The cat pictures in Cretan Hieroglyphics took different forms. Sometimes a full cat’s body was depicted, sometimes just a stylized cat’s head. In Linear A, the next writing system to come along on Crete, there was still a cat’s head symbol, but it was much more stylized, with something that looks roughly like a head with eyes, pointy ears, and sometimes a mouth. Linear A was used from about 1850 to 1400 BC and overlapped with Cretan Hieroglyphic for many years. Then, in about 1600 BC, came Linear B. Linear B also used a cat’s head, but you sort of have to use your imagination to see the cat. This is because it is basically all ears.

By the way, all three writing systems were named by archaeologist Sir Arthur Evans.

What did the cat figures mean?

Broadly, hieroglyphic writing is any system where the characters are pictures of recognizable things. The individual pictures can represent the thing they depict (a crow symbol could mean “crow”), or they could represent a sound (a crow symbol could mean “caw”—and obviously we are sort of making this up as a general example).

While we don’t know for sure what the cat in Cretan Hieroglyphic writing meant, Pippa Steele of the CREWS Project says we can sort of guess by working backward from Linear B, which has been deciphered. All of these systems are syllabic, so the symbols represent sounds—and the sound that the Linear B cat’s head represents is “ma.” Steele says that the symbol and its sound likely came from Linear A. It’s possible that the Cretan Hieroglyphic cat also stood for “ma” or something very similar.

Detail from a table of Cretan Hieroglyphic signs.
The cat is number 75.
From The Palace of Minos, Sir Arthur Evans.
Digitized by Internet Archive Book Images
[No restrictions], via Wikimedia Commons. 

Wouldn’t it just make sense that someone would draw a cat to represent something like the sound a cat makes? And let’s not forget that the ancient Egyptian word for “cat” was “miu,” so who knows—maybe the people of Crete called cats “mau” or “maur” or something.

Versions of the Linear A and B cat signs.
Adapted from illustrations in Steele 2017.

Sources

Steele, Pippa. 2017. “Cats in the Aegean Scripts.” CREWS Project website, August 7. https://crewsproject.wordpress.com/2017/08/08/cats-in-the-aegean-scripts/.

“Linear A and Linear B.” Encyclopedia Britannica. https://www.britannica.com/topic/Linear-A#ref106905

Survey: What Emotions Does Your Cat Experience?

How often does your cat show emotions such as fear?

We recently came across a study about how Japanese pet owners attribute emotions to their pets. In that study, 546 people who have either a dog or a cat responded to a survey that asked questions about how closely bonded they were to their pets and the types of emotions they thought their pets experienced. At first we were going to write a post about the results of the Japanese study, but then we thought it would be more fun to do our own little study. So, we created an extremely unscientific 10-question survey to let readers tell us about their own cats’ emotions.

If you wish to participate, simply scroll down, and for each emotion listed, select the response that best describes how often your cat experiences or expresses that emotion. If you have more than one cat, please consider your cats as a group (for example, if you have four cats and one of them frequently expresses anger, you would choose “often” for question 1). Remember this is just for fun!

We’ll collect the responses (up to 100, because that's how many we can have with a free survey) and share results in a future post.

We respect your privacy, so no personal information is being collected.

Thank you for participating!

Cat emotions are open to interpretation.
Is this cat jumping for joy, or just trying to catch something?

And here's the survey:

Create your own user feedback survey

This survey is based on the one used by Su, Koda, and Martens (2018).

Read the original Japanese study: B. Su, N. Koda, and P. Martens. 2018. “How Japanese Companion Dog and Cat Owners’ Degree of of Attachment Relates to the Attribution of Emotions to Their Animals.” PLoS One 13(1). https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0190781

The Black Cats of Amherst in World War I

As part of our ongoing but extremely occasional series on cats in military insignia, today we bring you the story of a group of young men from Amherst, Massachusetts, who volunteered as ambulance drivers for the French army in the First World War. They came to be known as the Black Cats, after the distinctive symbol they chose: a black cat in full-on scary pose, with its back arched and tail pointing straight up. This symbol may have been selected for good luck, writes amateur historian Jim Hamilton. Although in much of the US today, the common superstition is that black cats bring bad luck, let us not forget that cats of all sorts of colors have been credited with (or blamed for) bringing all sorts of luck in different places and times.

The black cat symbol of SSU 539.
Used with permission.

So, what kind of luck did the Amherst Black Cats have? Let’s find out…but first we must thank Jim Hamilton, who runs the Amherst Black Cats Twitter account and graciously agreed to tell us a little more about the history of this unit. It was through this Twitter account that we first learned of these young men from Amherst.

The Black Cats answer the call

The group that would become known as the Black Cats got its start on June 6, 1917, when several students and recent graduates of Amherst College, as well as a few others, signed on to drive ambulances for the French army. That summer, the unit headed to Allentown, Pennsylvania, to train at Camp Crane, which was actually on the site of the Allentown Fairgrounds. A photo recently posted on the Black Cats’ Twitter account shows that their barracks was the Bantams and Pigeons building. Their training included driving lessons and medical procedures. On August 6, they boarded the SS San Jacinto for the crossing to Europe, arriving at St. Nazaire, France, just over two weeks later, on August 21.

The entrance to Camp Crane, 1918.
The Amherst volunteers arrived here in summer 1917.
US Army photo.
Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.

The Black Cats on the Western Front

Officially known as Section Sanitaire États-Unis 539, or SSU 539, the Black Cats were sent to the war’s Western Front. They served with four French army groups:

• The 47th Chasseurs Alpins
• The 27th Division Infantry (briefly)
• The 5th Division
• The 4th Army (briefly)

Driving Ford Model T ambulances with their unit’s emblem on the side, the Black Cats participated in three major offensives in 1918:

• the Aisne-Marne Offensive
• the Oise-Aisne Offensive
• the Ypres-Lys Offensive

They also participated in a few minor operations. For their actions in evacuating the wounded, often in difficult conditions, the Black Cats were awarded the Croix de Guerre and were also entitled to wear the Fourragère.

Regarding luck, theirs seems to have been good. In the course of their service, only one member of the Black Cats was wounded and three were gassed. They all recovered. One member of the unit said this in a letter home:

We are the original horseshoe section, if there ever was one. Think of having been in a year with only one man slightly wounded! I think it’s the black cat on our cars, although that didn’t prevent a shell from ruining Riefler’s car, just after he was safe in a dug-out. I know it takes a lot of narrow escapes to get a man, but we’ve had an unusual number of them, every one of us.

Ambulance Corps training (not SSU 539)
at Camp Crane, Allentown, PA, 1918.
Photo by unknown USAAS photographer.
Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.

The Black Cats after the war

Following the Armistice that was signed on November 11, 1918, the Black Cats were stationed in Belgium and Germany before sailing for home in March 1919. They arrived back in the US on April 2. On April 23, a group of them marched from the Amherst train station to the college and presented the unit’s flag to the college president. The following year, they published a unit history (Amherst has two copies of it in their archive), and going forward, they maintained a chain letter of news updates for another ten years or so. College reunions provided an opportunity for the men to meet up in person.

Now, a century later, the Black Cats’ history continues to be written, as Jim Hamilton is finishing an early draft of a book that he plans to publish later this year. He will also be participating in a panel called “Amherst at War” at the reunion in May of this year. The Black Cat banner, which resides in the Amherst College archive, is in delicate condition, and he is hoping that it will be restored, a process that may involve some fundraising from alumni and Black Cat descendants.

Sources

Our main source, Jim Hamilton, is an amateur historian whose books include “The Writing 69^th,” the story of a group of war correspondents, including Walter Cronkite and Andy Rooney, who covered the 8^th Air Force out of England during World War II. His current research is for a book to be called “The Black Cats of Amherst,” which is about the World War I ambulance unit that his grandfather served in. For more information on Jim and his writing projects, please visit www.greenharbor.com.

Additional sources:

McFeely, William S. “The Black Cats of Amherst.” Amherst Magazine, Spring 2010. https://www.amherst.edu/amherst-story/magazine/issues/2010spring/blackcats

Ginn, Richard V. N. “World War I: The Ambulance Service.” The History of the US Army Medical Service Corps. 1977. http://history.amedd.army.mil/booksdocs/HistoryofUSArmyMSC/chapter2.html

Science Says Dogs Are Smarter Than Cats…Does It Matter?

By now you may have heard the latest news in the seemingly never-ending conflict between “dog people” and “cat people”: study results that were first reported last week^* showed dogs have more brain power than cats. Specifically, dogs were found to have more neurons in their cerebral cortex than cats have. The cerebral cortex is the outer part of the brain, where thinking happens, so how many “little gray cells” you have in it is important.

Comparing carnivores’ brains

The researchers, including Suzana Herculano-Houzel, an associate professor of psychology and biological sciences at Vanderbilt University, looked at the brains of eight species of carnivores: bear, lion, ferret, racoon, mongoose, hyena, and (obviously) cat and dog. They wanted to compare the number of neurons vs. brain size between the species. Dogs were found to have about 530 million cortical neurons, vs. 250 million for cats.

What does this mean? Herculano-Houzel—an admitted dog person—was quoted as saying, “I believe the absolute number of neurons an animal has, especially in the cerebral cortex, determines the richness of their internal mental state and their ability to predict what is about to happen in their environment based on past experience.” She also said, “Our findings mean to me that dogs have the biological capability of doing much more complex and flexible things with their lives than cats can.” Behaviors like this, I guess:

I’m kidding (you know I’m kidding, right?). We love dogs. We’re just not sure all that supposed brain power is doing dogs much good, at least in terms of their ability to live a civilized life. After all, while we cats play with our catnip mice and nap in our comfy beds, dogs are barking, drinking from the toilet, and rolling in the smelliest, most vile things they can find, after which they have to get a bath. Now I ask you, is that smart?

Dogs and cats are not the same

But what does 530 million cortical neurons vs. 250 million cortical neurons really mean? Well, we take it as further evidence that cats and dogs are not the same. Without descending into yet another argument over who’s better, who’s smarter, who’s more loyal, more loving, more comforting, more fun, more purry, more whatever-is-important-to-you, can we agree that cats are cats and dogs are dogs and they’re all great … just for being who and what they are?

Those  numbers of neurons tell us a lot, but they don't tell us everything. There are brilliant dogs and brilliant cats, and there are dumb dogs and (I hate to say it) dumb cats. There are also some pretty dumb people (despite their 16 billion cortical neurons), and there are plenty of people of average or above-average intelligence who (again despite all those neurons) get outsmarted every day by their cats and/or dogs. 

So go figure.

This all just goes to show that it's not how many neurons you have, it's what you do with them that counts.

Source

David Salisbury, “Sorry, Grumpy Cat—Study Finds Dogs Are Brainier Than Cats,” Research News @ Vanderbilt, November 29, 2017, https://news.vanderbilt.edu/2017/11/29/grumpy-cat-study-dogs/.

* The full article will appear soon in the open-access journal Frontiers in Neuroanatomy.

The Monastery of Saint Nicholas of the Cats

We cats have been renowned through the centuries for our ability to hunt small, harmful animals, like mice and rats. But we’ve also been used to hunt snakes. One rather famous instance in which cats were used to hunt snakes occurred at the Monastery of Saint Nicholas, located near Akrotiri on the Mediterranean island of Cyprus. This story begins way back in the fourth century, so it’s no surprise that there are some different versions of it. We’ll tell you about the ones we found.

This satellite image of Cyprus shows the approximate
location of Akrotiri.
Photo Jacques Descloitres, MODIS Rapid Response Team,
NASA/GSFC [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

Version 1: The patronage of Saint Helena

A portion of the Monastery of St. Nicholas of the Cats today.
Photo © A.Savin, Wikimedia Commons.

According to this version, which we found on Atlas Obscura, Saint Helena was the patron of a monastery on Cyprus. Construction of said monastery began in AD 327, but there were soon some problems. Slithery problems.  As the legend goes, a horrible drought had hit the island, and numerous venomous snakes sort of took over the monastery site (I don’t mean one of them declared himself foreman; I mean they became so numerous as to be dangerous). The construction workers left—understandably, we think—and so work on the monastery stopped.  Helena (who was also the mother of Constantine, by the way), naturally wanted work to continue, so she hit on the inspired idea of importing a bunch of cats and setting them loose on the snakes. She acquired some cats (we’ve heard it was 1,000 cats) from Egypt and Persia, and she trained them with two bells: one to call them to dinner, the other to send them off to hunt snakes. The scheme worked, although many of the cats ended up injured from their battles with the snakes (which, we remind you, were venomous).

Version 2: The visit of Saint Helena

A rather handsome tabby at the Monastery of
St. Nicholas of the Cats.
Photo  © A.Savin, Wikimedia Commons.

This version we found on the Ring of Christ website (where you can see more photos of the monastery and its cats). In AD 327, Saint Helena was on her way to Jerusalem, and she stopped by the monastery, which had been founded two years earlier. But she arrived only to find the place overrun with the very same venomous snakes mentioned above. Cyprus had been suffering through a drought for 17 years, and the snakes went wherever there was water, which tended to be where there were people. (We have also seen 36 years and 40 years given as the duration of this famous drought. From this, we deduce that no one really knows how long the drought lasted.) Helena had the idea to import cats, and she got together with the governor and arranged for the cats to be brought in. But in this version, it was the monks who actually trained the cats to react to the bells.

Firsthand accounts of the snake-hunting cats

Over the years, many visitors stopped by the Saint Nicholas Monastery, and some of them wrote of what they saw there. For example, one F. Suriano wrote in 1484,

I heard a marvellous thing. From the said city of Lymisso up to this cape the soil produces so many snakes that men cannot till it, or walk without hurt thereon. And were it not for the remedy which God has set there, in a short time these would multiply so fast that the island would be depopulated. At this place there is a Greek monastery which rears an infinite number of cats, which wage unceasing war with these snakes. It is wonderful to see them, for nearly all are maimed by the snakes: one has lost a nose, another an ear; the skin of one is torn, another is lame: one is blind of one eye, another of both. And it is a strange thing that at the hour for their food at the sound of a bell all those that are scattered in the fields collect in the said monastery. And when they have eaten enough, at the sound of the bell they all leave together and go to fight the snakes.  (F. Suriano, in Excerpta Cypria: Materials for a History of Cyprus, trans. by Claude Delaval Cobham [Cambridge: University Press, 1908] 48–49, https://archive.org/details/excerptacypriam00cobhgoog)

Also in the 15th century, a Dominican named Felix Fabri visited Cyprus in 1480 and 1483, and mentioned the monastery “surrounded by serpents” but protected by cats.

This cat from the monastery may have some battle scars on his face from snake hunting, though we can't
tell for sure. Writers who visited the monastery in centuries past reported seeing many scarred cats.
Photo  © A.Savin, Wikimedia Commons.

What kind of snakes are we talking about?

There are 10 species of snakes on Cyprus (or eight or nine, depending on how the scientists classify them). Three of these are venomous, but only one is really dangerous to humans. That one is the Cyprian blunt-nosed viper, which is highly venomous and especially dangerous because when it bites, its teeth stay behind in the wound, continuing to inject venom. This bite can be fatal to a human if not treated.

The other poisonous snakes are the Montpellier snake and the cat snake (so named because its eyes resemble cats’ eyes). The Montpellier snake’s bite can cause mostly localized reactions in humans, and treatment should be sought. The cat snake has its fangs in the back of its upper jaw and is not able to inject a human with venom.

The monastery's church as it appeared in 1973.
Photo by Shirazibustan [CC BY-SA 4.0)], via Wikimedia Commons.

We of course don’t know exactly which species caused so much trouble for the monastery builders, but if it was in fact the blunt-nosed viper, that seems like quite a large snake for a cat to handle, as they can grow from four to nearly six feet in length. We would guess that in fact there were several types of snakes (both venomous and nonvenomous) that moved into the area in response to the drought, and the cats were sent after all of them.

Saint Nicholas today

In 1570, the Ottomans conquered Cyprus and the monks had to leave. The original monastery is no longer there, but there is a more modern monastery on the site, now run by nuns, who first arrived in 1983. Again, we have slightly different stories: Either the nuns reintroduced cats to the church grounds, which had again become overrun with snakes, or they took up care of the cats that were still around. In any case, today the nuns care for the cats and paint icons.

And yes, the adventurous traveler can still visit the Holy Monastery of Saint Nicholas of the Cats. You can even buy homemade preserves from the sisters who live there. Just watch out for snakes!

One of the cats living at the monastery. If I were a snake, I would not mess with this cat.
Photo  © A.Savin, Wikimedia Commons.

Norwegian Forest Cat: The Official Cat of Norway

The Norwegian Forest Cat is a cat after my own heart because it has been around for a long time and has appeared in the mythology of its country of origin. Obviously I am speaking of Norway, and the mythology is Norse. But I am getting ahead of myself. Let’s meet the cat first.

A sturdy, affectionate, and gregarious breed

Norwegian Forest Cats are known for being affectionate, gregarious, and intelligent. They will even greet their people at the door. “Wegies,” as they are called in some circles,[1] adapt to change more easily than many other cats.

Norwegian Forest Cats, or Wegies, are well
adapted to cold weather.

Photo by Pieter Lanser [CC-BY-2.0],

via Wikimedia Commons.

They are sturdy cats, and generally healthy. With their insulated double coat that has water-resistant guard hairs over a warm undercoat, Wegies can be happy going for a stroll in the snow. Their tufted paws are also helpful in snow. They have a ruff, a bushy tail, and ears that  are heavily furnished (which means they have hair growing from inside their ears—an undesirable trait in humans, but a desirable one in some cats!). Wegies’ almond-shaped eyes can be gold to emerald green in color. Their coat can be nearly any color, but so far as we know, there are no chocolate, lilac, or pointed Wegies.

Norwegian Forest Cats are slow to mature, only reaching full size at about 5 years old. For females, “full size” is typically 9–12 pounds; for males, 12–16 pounds. They don’t need as much grooming as you might expect (a once-a-week brushing is usually enough), though they do shed their winter coat in the spring, so more grooming is needed at that time (the Cat Fanciers’ Association describes this as the “annual molt”). Wegies like to be with people and are good with children. In the wild, they spend a lot of time up in trees, so they would like to have something nice and tall to climb on at home.

And now, the history and mythology

The Norse goddess Freya in her chariot pulled by two

blue cats. They don't look much like Skogkatt here,

but that is what they are believed to represent.

© Patrimonio | Dreamstime.com - FreyaNorse Goddess Photo

In Norway, where it is a naturally occurring breed, the Wegie is called Skogkatt (“forest cat”). They have been around a long time and apparently arose from shorthaired cats brought into parts of northern Europe by the Romans. The thick coat, furry paws, and other features typical of Skogkatt developed over a period of some years as the cats adapted to their environment.

Norse mythology has several references to large cats that we think must by Skogkatt. For example, the Prose Edda (ca. 1179–1241) mentions that the goddess Freya has two large cats that pull her chariot (these cats happen to be blue; see our post “The Goddess Freya’s Cats” for more). Another story features a cat so huge, even the great god Thor could not lift it. Cats were important in Norse culture and were often given to young women as wedding gifts, presumably because of their association with Freya, the fertility goddess.

Norwegian Forest Cats love to climb!
If you get one, you must provide
climbing opportunities.
Photo via Adobe Stock.

The Danish clergyman Peter Clausson Friis (1545–1614) lived in Norway and described three types of lynx: a wolf lynx, a fox lynx, and a cat lynx. His “cat lynx” is thought to be the Skogkatt.  Somewhat later, in the 19th century, the cats appeared in fairy tales penned by Peter Christen Asbjørnsen and Jørgen Moe. These authors wrote of “fairy cats” or “huldrekatt.” Huldrekatt lived in the forest and had long, bushy tails, so we suppose they must have been Skogkatt.

The modern history of the Norwegian Forest Cat

In 1938, a Wegie made the breed’s first appearance at a cat show, in Oslo. World War II interrupted the breed’s development though, and it was the 1970s before a standard was described and a breeding program began. In 1973, two purebred Wegies, named Pippa Skogpuss and Pans Truls, were bred and had two kittens. Pans Truls would later be recognized as THE Skogkatt—the standard by which all others would be judged.

The first Norwegian Forest Cats to officially reach the United States arrived in 1979 (although they may have reached North American shores much earlier, in the late 10th century with the explorer Leif Erikson [d. 1020]). They reached the United Kingdom a few years later, in 1986.

Today, these beautiful, people-oriented cats are beloved by their humans as they take a little Viking flair everywhere they go.

Learn more!

We've written about the Skogkatt before, in the posts "What Kind of Cat Would Santa Claus Have: Part 1" and "Did Vikings Have Cats?"

Sources

"About the Norwegian Forest Cat." The Cat Fanciers' Association website. http://cfa.org/Breeds/BreedsKthruR/NorwegianForestCat.aspx.

Pickeral, Tamsin. "Norwegian Forest Cat." The Elegance of the Cat: An Illustrated History. Hauppauge, NY: Barron's, 2013.

(Top illustration created with Adobe Stock images.)

---

[1] The Norwegian Forest Cat is also called an NFC, but “wegie” sounds more like a friendly name and less like a government agency, so we will go with that.

Simon of the Amethyst and the Yangtze Incident

The events we describe in this post occurred in 1949 on China’s Yangtze River. China was in the midst of a civil war between the Nationalists, under Chiang Kai-Shek, and the Communists. At the time of the Yangtze Incident (also called the Amethyst Incident), the British Embassy was located in Nanking (Nanjing), on the lower Yangtze River. The embassy was protected by a Royal Navy ship. An attempt to relieve the ship on duty there would lead to an international incident that would make one cat famous.

Simon becomes a ship’s cat

The black-and-white cat the world would come to know as Simon was born in Hong Kong after World War II. The young tom was probably about a year old when he was found in Hong Kong’s dockyards in 1948 by Ordinary Seaman George Hickinbottom of HMS Amethyst. Hickinbottom snuck the cat onto the ship, where young Simon soon went to work hunting the pesky rodents that were aboard.

The cat became a favorite of the ship’s captain, even sleeping in the captain’s hat (when the captain wasn’t wearing it, of course). When a new captain, Lieutenant Commander Bernard Skinner, took over, Simon was allowed to stay.

HMS Amethyst during World War II.
By Royal Navy official photographer [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

Up the Yangtze, the Amethyst is attacked

In spring of 1949, Amethyst was ordered to sail up the Yangtze to relieve the HMS Consort at Nanking. It was just after 8:30 a.m. on April 20 and the frigate was about 60 miles from its destination when it was first fired upon from shore. The small-arms fire fell short, and Amethyst continued on, but an hour later she was shelled from another shore battery. This time the ship was hit and damaged. Lieutenant Commander Skinner was mortally wounded in a direct hit on the bridge, and all other bridge personnel were disabled. In all, twenty-two men were killed and 31 wounded. Arrangements were made to evacuate the wounded, leaving aboard about 60 unwounded men.

During the attack, Simon was so badly wounded by facial burns and shrapnel, the crew feared he would not survive. Nevertheless, he was tended to by the medical officer like any other crew member.

The Amethyst becomes a captive, and Simon resumes his duties

Simon's story has inspired several books.

The Amethyst itself was also hurt—grounded on a sandbar, its steering mechanism damaged. Communist snipers continued to fire at anyone who moved on deck. The ship was successfully refloated on April 21, and three days after the attack, military attaché Commander John Kerans arrived to take command. The dead were buried at sea. Still the Amethyst was unable to move without being fired on. The ship sat there for months.

Simon was recovering, and he resumed his duties of catching rodents. The crew’s morale improved a bit after he caught his first rat. Unfortunately, the new captain didn’t like cats, and Simon had a hard time making friends with him. Kerans wasn’t quite won over when Simon presented him with a dead rat, but when the cat tended to the commander as he recovered from an illness, the ice between them thawed.

The cat caught at least a rat per day, helping to protect the precious food stores and keeping the rodents out of the crew’s living quarters. He also visited with crewmen who’d been traumatized by the ordeal they were living through. He even killed the enormous, aggressive rat the crew had named Mao Tse-tung. That action earned him a promotion to the rank of “Able Seacat.”

Escape!

By the end of July, with their supplies running low, Commander Kerans knew that they would have to try to escape. So, on the night July 30, Amethyst raised its anchor and started downstream, following in the wake of a passenger steamer that happened by at just the right moment. The steamer provided a distraction, so when the shore battery opened fire, the gunners aimed not for the Amethyst but for the steamer, which was sunk.

The Amethyst, meanwhile, proceeded downriver, escaping to free waters. On August 1, the crew, Simon included, were awarded the Amethyst campaign ribbon. After undergoing repairs, the ship returned to Britain in October and was greeted jubilantly, as seen in this clip from British Pathé (Simon is seen briefly at the 2:17 point):

A gallant cat meets his end

Simon’s story had become quite well known, and word was out that he was to receive the Dickin Medal, awarded by the UK to animals for gallantry. Unfortunately, the cat was put into quarantine upon his return to Britain and while there, he became ill with a virus. Although Simon was young and received treatment for his illness, he had a weak heart, which made it harder for him to recover. He died on November 28, 1949. His Dickin Medal was awarded posthumously. He is the only cat ever to be awarded this medal.

Simon was buried with honors in the PDSA animal cemetery in Ilford. Today, a stone monument marks his resting place.

The monument marking Simon's resting place in
Ilford Animal Cemetery.
Photo by Acabashi (Own work) [CC BY-SA 3.0], via Wikimedia Commons.

The Dickin Medal, awarded by the UK
to animals for gallantry in war.
Simon is the only cat to
have received the medal.
Unfortunately, his was awarded
posthumously.
Photo by Andrew69. (own work)
[Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons. 

Sources

“Amethyst Incident,” Wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amethyst_Incident.

“Simon of the Amethyst,” chapter 8 in Silent Heroes: the Bravery & Devotion of Animals in War, by Evelyn Le Chêne (London: Souvenir Press, 2009 [paperback ed.]).

 “Simon, of HMS Amethyst,” Purr ’n’ Fur, http://www.purr-n-fur.org.uk/famous/simon.html. (Includes the most detailed version of Simon’s story we’ve found online, as well as several photographs of Simon.)

Big Cat News Roundup: May 2017

We’ve recently received several news releases concerning our big-cat cousins. Each one could be its own post, but we thought we’d condense them all into one news roundup.

Sunda clouded leopard.
Photo by Spencer Wright, North Walsham, England [CC BY 2.0],
via Wikimedia Common

African lions, clouded leopards, and declining prey populations

 First, we learned that African lions and Sunda clouded leopards face the same threats that saber-toothed tigers faced. Researchers from several institutions looked into what caused the extinction of seven big cat species from the Ice Age and concluded that loss of prey was a major factor. They then looked at the prey species of modern big cats and discovered that the African lion and Sunda clouded leopard (found in Borneo and Sumatra) could be at risk. The researchers say that if prey species for these cats continue to decline, the cats could have “a high risk of extinction.”

A snow leopard in India's Hemis National Park.
Photo by Snow Leopard Conservancy/Jammu & Kashmir Wildlife
Protection Department [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

Three subspecies of snow leopard identified

Next, we learned that 3 new subspecies of snow leopard have been identified. In the first-ever genetic analysis across the snow leopard’s range, researchers used the cats’ scat (i.e., poop) and identified three “genetic clusters.” They recognize these clusters as subspecies, each inhabiting its own geographic region. Understanding the subspecies populations can both help scientists understand the snow leopard’s evolution and ecology and provide information that can be used to improve the cats’ conservation.

Tree-climbing lions now have smaller prides, larger ranges

Finally, we learned that Uganda’s tree-climbing lions are roaming farther as their prey animals decrease. Scientists compared the home ranges of lion prides in Uganda’s Ishasha district from the 1970s and today. They discovered that the tree-climbing lions of today live in smaller prides with larger home ranges. This change has happened at the same time that the lions’ main prey species, the Ugandan kob, has declined. (We're sure you don't need us to point out how this bit of news relates to the first story we shared.)

Tree-climbing lions in Uganda's Ishasha district.
Photo by By Charlesjsharp, Sharp Photography [CC BY-SA 4.0], via Wikimedia Commons.

Did Dental Disease Turn Tsavo Lions into Man-Eaters?

Warning: Today’s post has some rather gruesome parts to it, as we bring you the story of two of our wild cousins who were famous for all the wrong reasons. You’ve been warned.

The Tsavo man-eaters

 Every once in while, you hear of a “man-eating” lion, but why do some lions choose to hunt humans instead of the four-legged hoofed animals that are their usual prey? A new study recently published in Scientific Reports looked at “dental microwear” to see what they could learn about lions' eating behaviors from evidence left behind on their teeth. The work suggests that at least in some cases, the answer to "Why?" could be dental injury and disease.

The "Tsavo man-eaters" today, in a diorama at the Field Museum
in Chicago. The skins were sold to the museum for $5,000 some 25 years
after the lions' death.
By Superx308 Jeffrey Jung, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons.

Two of the lions whose teeth were examined were the famous Tsavo man-eaters of 1898. These were maneless male lions that, according to the most spectacular estimate, killed up to 135 people. The actual number has been shown to be much lower, about 35 people, but that is still a lot. The victims were Indian members of a construction crew building a railroad bridge over the Tsavo River in Kenya. The terror at the railroad workers’ camp began in March 1898 when, shortly after their arrival, men started to go missing. Searches turned up mutilated bodies. Efforts to protect the camp with thorny barricades failed, as the lions found a way through the barriers. One worker wrote that the lions’

“very jaws were steeped in blood. Bones, flesh, skin and blood, they devoured all, and left not a trace behind them.”

Lieutenant Colonel J. H. Patterson, an engineer and leader of the expedition, wrote of hearing the cats crunching the bones of one of their victims, purring as they did so.

The first of the two Tsavo man-eating lions (FMNH 23970)
shot by Lieutenant Colonel Patterson, 1898.
 By Field Museum [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

Patterson would eventually kill both of the lions, the first on December 9, 1898. That lion was over nine feet long from his nose to the tip of his tail, and it took eight men to carry him to the camp. The second lion, killed three weeks later, was of similar size. Both lions had injuries to their skin from the thorns that were used to try to protect the workers’ camp. Patterson kept the skins as trophy rugs for some 25 years, before selling them to the Field Museum in Chicago for $5,000. They were stuffed and placed on display, and they can still be seen there.

(The 1996 movie The Ghost and the Darkness, starring Michael Douglas and Val Kilmer, dramatized the events in the construction camp.)

What the teeth say

Although Patterson wrote of hearing the lions crunching their victims’ bones, the evidence left behind on the cats’ teeth tells a different story. The authors of the paper in Scientific Reports used something called dental microwear texture analysis to determine what the lions were eating. The results suggest that, in the period just before their death, the Tsavo man-eaters were not consuming the bones of their prey and were instead consuming only the softer tissues.

The second Tsavo lion shot by Lieutenant Colonel Patterson.
This lion is now known as FMNH 23969.
Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.

The teeth also showed a possible reason the lions became man-eaters. One of the cats had a serious dental injury, a broken lower tooth, and the pain from that may have made it impossible for him to kill normal prey in the usual lion way, through suffocation. That could have prompted him to pass up his usual prey in favor of something softer, slower, and easier to catch, like people. The other lion also had dental injuries, but his were less severe. Interestingly, for the second lion, humans made up a smaller part of his diet than for the first lion—13% versus 30%. And those numbers, by the way, also show that humans still made up a relatively small part of both lions’ diets.

We think it’s worth noting that it seems that, even for the “man-eaters,” humans were not at the top of the menu. The lion with the severely injured tooth may have turned to the workers’ camp for prey because he was in too much pain to routinely catch and kill other prey. The second lion may have been a true copycat, learning from his companion how to take easy prey from the camp.

If you have about nine minutes, this video is well worth a look. It's from before the most recent paper was published, but you can see researcher Larisa DeSantis demonstrating how molds of the lions’ teeth were made. Interesting!

Sources

Larisa R. G. DeSantis and Bruce D. Patterson, “Dietary Behaviour of Man-Eating Lions as Revealed by Dental Microwear Textures,” Scientific Reports 7, April 19, 2017, doi:10.1038/s41598-017-00948-5, https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-017-00948-5

J.H. Patterson, The Man-Eating Lions of Tsavo and Other East Africa Adventures, 1907.

Paul Raffaele, “Man-Eaters of Tsavo,” Smithsonian, January 2010, http://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/man-eaters-of-tsavo-11614317/

The Korat: An Ancient Cat Breed from Thailand

The Korat is a blue cat that originated in Thailand,
where they are considered to bring good luck.
Illustration by bullet_chained, via Adobe Stock.

The Korat is a handsome and ancient breed of cat from Thailand (formerly Siam), where they are considered to bring good luck. They are sometimes called Si Sawat in Thailand, meaning “color” and “good fortune.” In fact, pairs of Korats have traditionally been given to newlywed couples in Thailand to bring the marriage good luck. I don’t know about luck, but anyone with a Korat has a blue-coated cat that tends to be playful, affectionate, and loyal.

A coat like pampas grass

The Korat’s blue coat has a silvery, shimmery quality to it that results from the effect of thousands of  individual hairs, each lighter colored at the root and darker near the tip, which is silver. Large green eyes complement the blue coat, giving the Korat a particularly striking face. In a 20^th-century copy of an old Thai text, the Korat is described like this:

The cat Mal-Ed has a body color like “Doklao” [dok meaning “flower, and lao meaning “lemon grass” or “pampas grass”]. The hairs are smooth, with roots like clouds and tips like silver. The eyes shine like dewdrops on the lotus leaf.

A Korat, showing the beautiful silver-tipped blue coat.
Photo by Mikkel Bigandt, via Adobe Stock.

The five hearts of the Korat

There are said to be five hearts associated with the Korat:

1. The face forms a heart, which you will see if you look at the cat straight on.
2. The top of the head forms a heart, which you will see if you look down on it.
3. The nose forms a heart.
4. The cat’s chest shows a heart shape when the cat is sitting down.
5. And of course there is the cat’s actual heart.

An ancient breed

The recorded history of the Korat goes back to a book called Cat Book Poems, which was made sometime between 1350 and 1767 and is now in the Bangkok National Library. It describes 17 “good luck” cats, including the Korat. This book was copied sometime in the 19^th century, under commission from King Rama V (1853–1910). This copy, called Smud Khoi of Cats, is also in the national museum. Then there is the 20^th-century copy quoted above. You can see the 17 lucky cats on this page from Korat World (the Korat is the fifth cat).

The Korat was named by King Rama V. When the king was asked where the cats came from, he answered that they were from the Khorat region, which is in the country’s northeast. It is thought that the cat’s coloring provided good camouflage among the granite rocks common to that region.

Superstitions and stories associated with the Korat

Korats have large emerald-green eyes set in a face that suggests
the shape of a heart--one of the breed's "five hearts."
Photo by Mpc92, via Adobe Stock.

• Traditionally, Korats could only be given as a gift; they could not be bought and sold.
• It is said that when Thai warriors charged into battle on elephants, some carried their fierce male Korats with them.
• The Korat’s fur represents wealth and good fortune.
• The cat’s green eyes are like the green of young plants, representing a good harvest.
• The cat’s coat is like rain clouds, and rain brings a good harvest.
• A Korat with a kink in its tail is thought to be especially lucky.

The Korat comes west

It seems that a Korat was exhibited at a cat show in 1896 at Holland House in London. This cat, named Nam Noi and owned by Mrs. B. Spearman, was described as “a blue cat from Siam.” Mrs. Spearman contended that the cat was a Siamese, but it was disqualified from the Siamese class because of its unusual coloring. However, the cat placed first in the “Russian or Any Other Blue” class. A report on the show said this:

Siamese were plentiful. Raheng was a really good male. Nam Noi, a Blue, was entered as a Siamese, and very possibly came from Siam; but that does not make him a Siamese any more than an English cat coming from Persia would be a Persian. To my thinking, Nam Noi was an undoubted Russian. The pick of all the Siamese, however was Rimo and when fullgrown he ought to figure well and be a credit to that excellent studcat, King Kesho. In Russians Nam Noi in its right class won.

Although there do seem to have been a few Korats in the country much earlier, the first of these cats to “officially” arrive in the United Kingdom came in 1972, when a female and two males were brought in. The breed had arrived in the United States several years before, in 1959, when Jean Johnson, owner of Cedar Glen cattery, was given two Korats. Other breeders also imported Korats to establish breeding programs.

Today Korats remain rare, so count yourself lucky if you’ve seen one!

Sources

Coleman, Cheryl. “The Korat.” Cat Fanciers’ Association website. http://cfa.org/Breeds/BreedsKthruR/Korat/KoratArticle.aspx

Lacey, Jen. “Was This the First Korat to Be Shown?” Korat World. http://www.koratworld.com/namnoi.html

Pickeral, Tamsin. The Elegance of the Cat: An Illustrated History. Hauppage, NY: Barron’s, 2013.