Ear Tufts On DSH Cats?

Do you have a cat, or cats, with ear tufts?

I am refering to DSH's, not breeds specifically known for them.

Taz, our big, orange, 11 year old, indoor, neutered tom has them.

He is 19 to 20 pounds and is big, not very fat.

He has ear tufts 3/8 to 1/2 inch long (won't hold still for measuring )

He showed up here at 12 weeks of age so I don't know the "lineage", he is just about the size of a Maine Coon but I don't think he is one.

When he showed up, his tail was injured and infected so the vet had to amputate it, leaving a Lynx or Bobcat sized tail, the ear tufts add to this general "wild cat" appearance Look deceive thought, he's as domestic as they get.

Zane has small tufts. (They don't really show on the picture.)

Rocky has small tufts; he's the black, gray and white tabby and the tufts can be seen in his photo.

Yes they do, but they are not DSH's

*lol's at ATB*

There's a DSH at work (Petsmart) up for adoption, who has very nice, big tufts. He looks so...exotic...<3

Originally Posted by Claydust

Do you have a cat, or cats, with ear tufts?

I am refering to DSH's, not breeds specifically known for them.

Taz, our big, orange, 11 year old, indoor, neutered tom has them.

He is 19 to 20 pounds and is big, not very fat.

He has ear tufts 3/8 to 1/2 inch long (won't hold still for measuring

)

He showed up here at 12 weeks of age so I don't know the "lineage", he is just about the size of a Maine Coon but I don't think he is one.

When he showed up, his tail was injured and infected so the vet had to amputate it, leaving a Lynx or Bobcat sized tail, the ear tufts add to this general "wild cat" appearance

Look deceive thought, he's as domestic as they get.

Click to expand...

I want to see him. Can you post a picture?

My baby has ear tufts. But his appearance is just overall...strange. His entire body is short hair, but he has longer hair under his ears that wraps around to under his chest, on his belly, and his tail looks like a DLH tail. I call it his squirrel tail. Strangest types of fur I've ever seen. That's what you get from a mix of God only knows what street kitty, .

Pumpkin has them... but she's an alley cat, so it's anybody's guess as to what random collection of breeds she comes from.

Most of ours have them, but they are all rescued barn cats, and a bobcat DID mate with a few of the females about 8 years ago. About 1/2 of the barn cats also have cropped tails or no tails.

edit: you can't really tell from my siggy because they are all pics from when they were younger, but Corky, Missy, Monster and Little One have tufts, Harley and Gizmo don't. Also, of the 4 with tufts, the only one that has a full tail is Monster.

Sassy is the only one of mine that has ear tufts. They are quite cute and make him look very handsome.

Yes.... Siddha is my little DSH orange tabby boy and he has awesome ear tufts! Sometimes I tease him and call him Bat-Cat. Bodhi, OTOH, is supposedly full Maine Coon and he barely has any at all on top of his ears.

I had a yellow DSH named Taz when I was a little girl! He had ear tufts too. But he was pretty small, maybe seven pounds, he was long and skinny.

I have three cats all with very hairy ears, but all coming from the "inside" of the ear "dish."  This is a cold weather adaptation.  Our boys were brought in to be house cats from the woods in central Minnesota where the winter temperatures can be well below zero Fahrenheit.

My theory on the function of tufts on cats ears (like the Lynx) is that it is an adaptation to aid in locating and tracking prey or carrion based on smell.

Unlike whiskers, which have a small cross-sectional area and produce very little drag in wind, the tufts are very efficient at catching wind.  Having one tuft on each ear, along with a high degree of bi-lateral symmetry of the face allow the cat to quickly determine the upwind source direction of the wind at the time a scent is caught.

One large environment where this adaptation would be very useful would be the winters in the north woods.  There are times when it is very cold and the air is quite still.  In these conditions, scents to not bloom from the source as much, and determining direction of up-wind becomes much more difficult as there is little steady wind to make it readily apparent.

calico2222 said:

Most of ours have them, but they are all rescued barn cats, and a bobcat DID mate with a few of the females about 8 years ago. About 1/2 of the barn cats also have cropped tails or no tails.

edit: you can't really tell from my siggy because they are all pics from when they were younger, but Corky, Missy, Monster and Little One have tufts, Harley and Gizmo don't. Also, of the 4 with tufts, the only one that has a full tail is Monster.

Click to expand...

Bob cats DO NOT mate with domestic house cats.

there are tufts at the end of his ears, little ones and they are getting longer since this pic was taken 2 years ago, he is now 8 years old, his name is Panthera for obvious reasons, he is also my avatar, he has short hair  and  has the most incredible blue-green eyes

My adopted cat Babou is a agouti tabby with tufted ears. Always makes him look very devious. Not sure abut what mix of breeds he might be. 

My foster baby Danny had ear tufts.

Heh... once, my man found an 'orphaned kitten' out in a field somewhere. It was just a wee little mite so he brought the little thing home and took care of him. The little bug looked like a scruffy tabby DSH kitten with ear tufts and a sort of stumpy tail-- a Manx mix-- until he grew up some more.

Then he looked like this:


OOPS! The wee mite turned out to be a real, honest-to-God BOBCAT! 

But by the time it became apparent (or they all came out of denial... more likely the truth here)... "Bob" was already too domesticated to function in the wild. So, he went to a wildlife refuge, where he served as a 'greeter' and sort-of mascot... because he really was people friendly (though for obvious reasons, he was limited in his interactions with the general public. After all, he was still a bobcat and a 'wild' animal).

The ear tufts and stumpy tail should have given it away-- but "Man's" heart melted at the thought of a possibly orphaned little kitten alone in a hot Texas field in the middle of the summer. And well, they managed to bond, and Bob behaved decently with the other cats in the house other than the usual inter-male friction that happens sometimes (he didn't believe in neutering until we got together!).

Anyway... yes, domestic cats can have ear tufts. Our Himalayan has a GREAT set of tufts! Pixie-bobs have them as a breed standard. So yeah, it's a thing among cats. Very cute!

segelkatt said:

 
Bob cats DO NOT mate with domestic house cats.

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Um... it sometimes does happen, but the offspring are not always fertile and the mating process is... let's just say, BRUTAL. Bobcats, apparently, aren't gentle lovers, and they are quite a bit bigger than your average kittypet. However, even though bobcat x housecat crosses have not yet been proven, the chromosome numbers and the gestational lengths would be similar between the two species-- probably closer, even, than some other wild x domestic hybrids. So theoretically, a hybrid MIGHT occur.

We, however, cannot definitively say that cross-species pairings (or r@pes) 'DO NOT' happen.

Claydust said:

Do you have a cat, or cats, with ear tufts?

I am refering to DSH's, not breeds specifically known for them.

Taz, our big, orange, 11 year old, indoor, neutered tom has them.

He is 19 to 20 pounds and is big, not very fat.

He has ear tufts 3/8 to 1/2 inch long (won't hold still for measuring

)

He showed up here at 12 weeks of age so I don't know the "lineage", he is just about the size of a Maine Coon but I don't think he is one.

When he showed up, his tail was injured and infected so the vet had to amputate it, leaving a Lynx or Bobcat sized tail, the ear tufts add to this general "wild cat" appearance

Look deceive thought, he's as domestic as they get.

Click to expand...

Did you ever get a pic? He sounds like he may be a Maine Coon mix with tufts that long, all the others here, including mine, have just slightly longer fur on their ear tips.