Other Name
Who doesn’t love a spotted cat? Random spots in tawny, chocolate, cinnamon, blue, lavender or fawn dot the Ocicat’s coat, which has a silver or nonsilver background. The wild look is just a façade, though. The Ocicat is a playful, sociable pet. Similar to something you would see in the wild, the Ocicat is an agouti spotted cat with a strong, athletic build. Like an Ocelot, its short and soft coat has rows of spots that run along the spine from the shoulder blades to the tail, and large thumbprint-like spots across the side of the torso. And while the ideal Ocicat is large, it can also be medium in size.
The Ocicat was a happy accident, the surprise result of a cross in 1964 between a ruddy Abyssinian male and a seal point Siamese female, with the goal of developing a Siamese with Abylike points. Breeder Virginia Daly kept a female from the litter—all of which resembled Abyssinians—and bred her to a chocolate point Siamese. That time she got the hoped-for Siamese with Abyssinian points and repeated the breeding. The next litter contained something new: an ivory kitten with gold spots. Daly’s daughter remarked on the kitten’s resemblance to an Ocelot and said he should be called an Ocicat. The kitten, named Tonga, was beautiful, but he wasn’t what Daly was looking for, so he was neutered and sold as a pet. But that wasn’t the end of the story. In a letter to geneticist Clyde Keeler, Daly described Tonga in passing. Keeler, who was interested in reproducing the now-extinct Egyptian Spotted Fishing Cat, suggested breeding Tonga back to his mother. That wasn’t possible, of course, but Daly repeated the breeding and another such kitten was born. American Shorthairs were then added to the “recipe” to bring in substance as well as silver coloring. Eventually, other breeders became interested in the spotted cats and began their own breeding programs. The Cat Fanciers Association began registering the cats in 1966, but did not grant them full recognition until 1987. The International Cat Association recognized the Ocicat in 1986.
