| The first Cornish Rex was born July 1950 in Cornwall, a county in
southwestern England.Located in one of the warmest and rainiest parts of |
| England,Cornwall is home to what’s left of Tintagel Castle, allegedly the site
of King Arthur’s Camelot. |
|
Serena, an ordinary
tortoiseshell and white barn cat, gave birth to five kittens on a farm in
the Bodmin Moor area of Cornwall.
|
| This now famous litter contained four ordinary kittens and one
extraordinary cream-colored, curly-coated male.Nina Ennismore, Serena’s
|
| owner, named the kitten Kallibunker.He was very different from his
littermates: His hair was short and curly, and instead of possessing the |
| stocky body of his littermates and his mother, Kallibunker’s body was long and lithe.
He had large ears, a slender tail and an egg-shaped head. |
| This cat was destined to become the father of the Cornish Rex breed.Ennismore recognized that Kallibunker’s
fur was similar to the wavy fur |
| of the Astrex rabbit,since Ennismore had previously raised and exhibited rex
rabbits.However, it was not until she talked to British geneticist |
| A.C.Jude
that she began a breeding program to develop Kallibunker’s unique qualities into
a recognized breed. |
| The name Cornish Rex was decided upon because of the breed’s
origin in Cornwall and its resemblance to the Astrex rabbit.On Jude’s |
| advice, Ennismore bred Kallibunker to his mother, Serena.This mating
produced a litter containing one straight-coated kitten and two curly- |
| coated kittens.One of these curly-coated kittens, a blue-cream male named Poldhu, went on to sire kittens. |
| Kallibunker was test-mated to Burmese, Siamese,
and British domestic shorthairs,and the coat mutation was determined to be
recessive. |
| For a trait governed by a recessive gene to manifest itself in the physical
appearance of a kitten,the kitten must inherit two copies of the gene- |
| one from each parent.If the kitten inherits only one copy, the kitten will always have
straight hair, because straight hair is dominant over rex |
| hair.However, a
straight-coated cat with one copy of the recessive rex gene can produce Rex
offspring if bred to another cat with at least one |
| copy of the rex gene.So two
ordinary looking cats could produce extraordinary Rex kittens, if it’s so
written in their genes.Because of financial |
| problems, in 1956 Ennismore stopped breeding and
euthanized a number of her cats, including Kallibunker and Serena. By then,
other British |
| breeders, including Brian Sterling-Webb,had become interested in
the Cornish Rex and continued the breeding program. However, because of |
| bad luck and mishaps(for example, Poldhu was castrated in a botched
procedure to take a tissue sample),only one fertile
Cornish Rex male, |
| Sham Pain Charlie, remained in England by 1960.Only by breeding Sham Pain Charlie to other breeds and
domestic shorthairs did the |
| Cornish Rex survive in its native land.However, in 1957 two Cornish Rex were brought to America by Frances Blancheri
of California. |
| One, a red tabby male named Pendennis Castle, never sired
kittens.The other, a blue female named Lamorna Cove,who arrived pregnant by |
| Poldhu before his unfortunate encounter with the scalpel,produced a
Rex litter that included two curly-coated kittens:a blue and white
female |
| named Diamond Lil, and a blue and white male named Marmaduke.These
cats became the foundation stock for virtually every Cornish Rex |
| line in the United States.Since the gene pool was so small and no additional Rex cats were available
from England,the Cornish Rex was an |
| endangered species.American breeders bred
Diamond Lil and Marmaduke and their offspring to Siamese,
American Shorthairs,
Burmese
and |
| Havana Browns.Although this changed the body and head type temporarily,it
widened the gene pool and provided the wide selection of colors |
| and patterns available today.Later, a curly-coated cat showed up in
a California animal shelter and was acquired by breeders Bob and Dell |
| Smith.Where she came from no one knows, but the
odd-eyed
calico named Mystery Lady brought needed new blood to the breed, |
| once test matings determined she possessed the Cornish Rex gene |
| Slowly but surely, the
breed flourished and attained the diversity and popularity it now enjoys. |
| |
