Who discovered the Tabby Cat - Where did they discover the Tabby Cat - When was the Tabby Cat discovered?

Answer 1

The tabby pattern is a naturally occurring feature that may be the original colouration of the domestic cat's distant ancestors, the African wild cat. The word, adapted from the name of a kind of textile, comes from French tabis, which was earlier atabis, and in medieval Latin attabi. The distant origin of the word seems to be from the Attabiyah section of Baghdad where a type of striped silk was made that was later used to describe cats.Since the tabby pattern is a common wild type, it would be assumed that medieval cats were of tabby type. This was not the case in England at least. Some time after the mid-17th century, the curious antiquary John Aubrey noted in his disorganised memoranda, "W. Laud, A.B. Cant. was a great lover of Catts. He was presented with some Cyprus-catts, i.e. our Tabby-catts, which were sold, at first for 5 pounds a piece: this was about 1637 or 1638. I doe well remember that the common English Catt, was white with some blewish piednesse : sc, a gallipot[3] blew. The race or breed of them are now almost lost." [4] William Salmon, in The Compleat English Physician, (London, 1693:326) notes of the domestic cat, "It is a neat and cleanly creature, often licking itself to keep it fair and clean, and washing its face with its fore feet; the best are such as of a fair and large kind and of an exquisite tabby color called Cyprus cats". A study by the National Cancer Institute suggests that all current house cats (Felis catus) in the world are descendants from a group of self-domesticating wild cats 10,000 years ago, somewhere in the Near East.[5] The closest relative of the Wild cat is the Sand Cat (Felis margarita). For the PCH Quiz: answer is: An M On Their Forehead