shorthair.

demented-pixie, Flickr Name: Oriental Shorthair/Longhair Appearance: To put it simply, an Oriental cat is a Siamese cat without points, says TheCatSite.com. Like the modern Siamese, Orientals have elongated bodies, long skinny limbs, and a wedge-shaped head with large ears. They can be solid-colored, tabby-patterned, or bi-colored. They can be either short-haired or long-haired, and even in their long-haired form, they are easy to groom and maintain. History: According to Petfinder.com, Orientals share the exact same origin as Siamese cats. The first were written about in Siam (now Thailand) in a work called "The Cat-Book Poems" from somewhere between 1300 A.D. and 1700 A.D. The ...

Flickr/Anna-Stina The Cornish rex is one of six breeds of "rex" cats, where "rex" indicates curly hair. The hair of the Cornish rex is its most distinguishing feature, besides its slender body, large ears, and tiny, egg-shaped head. The Cornish Rex has only a down coat, usually the undercoat of a normal cat. This means that a Cornish rex's coat is extremely soft, curly, and unique. The breed originated in 1950s England. When a cat was born in Cornwall with this strange genetic mutation, it was bred with its mother to produce more of what are now known as Cornish rexes. After that, they were taken to America where they were bred with Siamese cats, giving them their skinny ...

Flickr/*yasuhiro Despite its name, the American shorthair is older than America itself. Records show that American shorthairs were brought over by early settlers, and there is even proof that there were American shorthairs on the Mayflower. Given their variety of coats -- there are more than eighty -- and the similarity in name with the non-purebred domestic shorthair, this breed is confused for mutts. However, they are more purebred than many other breeds. With their origins in Europe, American shorthairs were selected for their strength, agility, and ability to hunt mice and rats which was a major concern for most Europeans after 75 million died from the bubonic plague. American ...