Ultra-old cats - what is known about their longevity?

My tuxedo cat, Kitty, is somewhere in the range 24 to 26 years old.   She still plays with yarn, and seems to be in fine health, though had been through a flea war last fall.    A much younger cat, about 10 or 11, didn't make it through that invasion.

She was found in Montana, declawed, maybe a year or two old,  and adopted by an outdoorsy family I which became involved with years later.  Now Kitty lives with me, continuing her excellent work in napping research.

How common is it for a cat to make it to 20 and beyond?   What is known about their DNA, eating habits, environment they live in, etc?  Any scientific studies, statistics?  

Sometimes I wish she weren't spayed, so that such excellent DNA could be passed on to fuutre generations of cats.

A few months ago I saw an article about a guy with a cat 31 years old, which ate all sorts of foods normally not associated with cats.   Kitty eats regular ol' mass market canned food, just not the cheapest brands.  Maybe food doesn't matter as long as junk is avoided.

Does she win a free can of tuna if she beats the world record?  

It is unusual for a kitty to make it beyond 20 though it isn't extremely rare either.  I think genetics plays a big part in a kitty making it to the age that your kitty is particularly to make it to that age in good health.  

I don't really know of statistics about lifestyle versus longevity in kitties.  I think the record about the longest living kitty is about it.  

Out of our six original RugCats, 5 lived to be over 20 years old: Hydrox passed away from mammary cancer at a little over 20 years; had the cancer not come back, he would have lived quite a bit longer because he was still very active even to that point.

Whisper was a little over 20 years and her sister, Bootser, was 21 years old when they died. Her son and daughter, BooBoo and Ms. Pepe are still with us and they just celebrated their 20th  birthday back in February. Pepe is still in wonderful shape for an geriatric cat and it's hard to believe she's as old as she is; BooBoo has some sinus issues and some pretty bad arthritis, but he still gets around very well and they're both still active, eating very well, and interested in their world in the house. So we have had five cats that all lived to be over 20 years old. Other than Hydrox, they were all blood-related: Whisper and Bootser were litter-sisters and Boo and Pepe are from the last litter that Whisper had....she gave birth to them.  

Our Miss Amber is 15 and still going very strong. Although our vet calls her "geriatric", to us, she's still a youngster, simply because the others were and are so old that she seems young. And our five-year-old girls still seem like kittens to us.   

As for food, every single one of our cats has lived on Friskies Buffet canned food. We've never even thought about changing their diet. They do get dry kibble, but only as snacks, or as their lunch, that's it. Their main meals consist of the Friskies Buffet. 

Every single one of our cats drinks nothing but bottled spring water.  We have lived in various places, some with wells, some with municipal water. The cats only drink bottled spring water. That's it.  When Hydrox drank the water from our well, he blocked up and was in hospital for almost a week. And at that point, we agreed that we would buy bottled water for them. The rest of the cats have never had anything but the bottled water. Ever. I don't know if that matters or not. It's just what we do.

We've had cats who have died early. Banshee was 14 when she died; she had a lot of health issues, but I still wasn't ready for her to leave. Spike passed away two weeks shy of his first birthday; he was a litter-brother to BooBoo and Ms. Pepe. Da-Pumpkin Boy passed away when he was just a little over two years old. So we've had our share of kitties who have died fairly young, too. I guess we've been lucky, though, overall, that we've had many of our cats for a long time.

ETA: I need to mention that all of our cats are strictly indoor cats, which will add to their longevity as well.

My childhood cats, litter-sisters, lived to be 21. They were pretty peppy up to the end too. They ate dry Friskies/Cat Chow/Nutro only until they were 16 or so, then they ate mainly Fancy Feast. They got annual vaccinations until they were about 10, then we pretty much stopped.

I haven't had any other cats live that long. I lost a couple of 12-year-olds, a 14-year-old, and a 16-year-old. One who was picked up as a stray might have been 19 or so. . .we had her for 14 years. The vet said she "wasn't young" when we got her, but who knows her exact age.

I think a lot of it is due to genes. But since we rarely know what our moggies' genetic heritage is, it's not something we can guess at.

I've had 2 cat's. One lived to 21 and the other to 20. They were both in good health right up into 18 or 19 years old. Again as Pam already stated,

they were both indoor cat's.

Its not that uncommon anymore for a cat to live to be 20 or older.

THe closest one I had lived to be 19,5 years of age.

There is a neighbor 2 houses up that had an outdoor cat (yes outdoor) that lived to be 26 years of age.

Our neighbor's cat lived to be 22 and was an indoor/outdoor cat and feasted on fresh mice that he caught. The owners only provided water and kibble as a supplement, but he mostly chased after mice on their grounds. He was also never vaccinated after the initial vaccination just before he was adopted.