Other Name
The Sphynx seems like a contradiction: a hairless cat? But people who come to know him soon fall under the spell of this bald but beautiful feline. His warmth, humor and exotic appearance all combine to make him a favorite with cat lovers. The Sphynx cat is a medium- to large-sized cat, muscular and heavy for its appearance and size. Its ears are large to very large, open wide and upright, much like the ears of a bat. The eyes are set wide and are round with a slight slant at the upper corners -- lemon shaped, by most accounts. The widely set eyes and wide open roundness of the eyes give the Sphynx an approachable, friendly appearance. There is no specific color expected of the eyes, and can vary. Its cheekbones, meanwhile, are prominent, giving this breed a regalness that brings to mind Egyptian cats of lore.
The progenitor of the Sphynx appeared in Toronto, Canada, in 1966, born to a domestic cat with a regular coat. The hairlessness is the result of a natural mutation and wasn’t the first example of hairlessness in cats. A pair of hairless cats had been known of in Mexico at the turn of the last century, but they were not related to the modern Sphynx. The Canadian cat and other hairless cats found throughout the world were bred to cats with normal coats and then back to hairless cats to create a large gene pool. Devon Rex and American Shorthair cats are among the breeds that played a role in the development of the Sphynx.
