Webbed toes?

Hi, I am new to this forum and you will find I have tons of questions ... we got a LOVELY 15 mo. boy from Siamese Rescue, recently, and, well, our Vet Tech and we know he is "something," but not sure just what. Yes, I am the first person to know how many beautiful free-bred cats there are in the world. But ... here goes. His name is Ulysses (my DH is Homer!).

He is pure white. He has a moderate wedge head, and gold eyes. His body type is quite moderate, not tubular, but delicate bones and longish limbs. He can touch the top of his head with his tail by flexing it. He has a single coat that is VERY silky. And oddest of odd, he has these long, WEBBED toes on his forepaws! My first thought was swimming and perhaps he was a Van outcross ... thought Iremembered they had webbed toes but cannot find it anywhere, now.

Oh, and his personality reminds me most of my Abyssinians. He is a big earlobe-sucking kneading baby. He NEVER has his claws out.

Any ideas?
-- Linda

Perhaps he has some ocicat lineage in his system. A friend of mine owned a purebred ocicat and it had webbed toes. Not only did he have webbed toes but he *loved* the water (unlike 99.9% of most cats). I think that's common to their breed. In fact, I think there are other purebred cats with webbed toes.

Yes, forgot to mention, he definitely DOES love water ... plays in the tub, and I caught him in the toilet messing around, last night! (Gotta train my son to lower the lid!). My Aby girls were like that. But they had such course coats ... he feels almost like a bunny. It is a short coat too ... but long is recessive. I do not know about the more complex aspects of coat-type genetics though.

I know Bengals have some Aby lineage, do Ocis, as well? He could've gotten it from Oci lines, you are right, they are big lovers, too!