Let us learn a little bit about the history of the Sphynx cat. It is important to note that Sphynx cats are not a “man made” designer breed. While breeders had a big hand in establishing a foundation for the Sphynx, hairless cats are the product of mother nature and a natural mutation. Hairless cats have been mentioned in history going back to the 1800’s. There have been historical references from: Australia, Austria, Canada, Czech Republic, England, France, Hawaii, Latin America, Mexico, Morocco, Russia and the USA.
The modern Sphynx is mainly the product of selective breeding from cats found between the 1960’s and 1970’s. Some of the first attempts at breeding Sphynx began in 1966. A black and white cat gave birth to a hairless kitten in Ontario, Canada. This kitten was named Prune, as the skin was wrinkled like a prune. Prune was bred to other cats in an attempt to create more hairless kittens. It was discovered that the hairlessness was a recessive gene, so some of the kittens resulting from this union had hair, while others did not. There were several more natural mutations found between 1975 and 1978 in Minnesota and Toronto. These kittens, named Epidermis, Punkie, and Paloma, were bred to Devon Rex. The Devon Rex gene is the only gene that is recessive to the Sphynx gene and hairless kittens are possible from the first generation of offspring. Most of the Sphynx cats today can trace their pedigrees to these foundation cats.
Though rare, there are still reports of hairless kittens spontaneously appearing in litters of feral cats and barn cats. These cats, with proper gene testing, may still be used in a Sphynx breeding program to strengthen and expand the gene pool. Many Feline associations also allow for outcrossing with selective breeds, such as American Shorthair, British Shorthair (Loof), Devon Rex and non-pedigreed domestic Shorthair cats. There are some people who exploit the Sphynx mutation and cross it with any number of other mutations for the sake of novelty but this does nothing to improve the Sphynx as a breed and contributes nothing to health, in fact it does the opposite by introducing other disease contributory genes into the breed. Outcrossing should be done expressly for health, and non-permissible outcrossing for novelty or financial gain should be discouraged.
Mexican Hairless, Moon Cat, Moonstone Cat or Canadian Hairless were some of the names associated with the breed until CFA judge David Mare coined the term “Sphynx” some years later, due to their physical similarities with an ancient Egyptian cat sculpture called the Sphinx. Many Feline Associations from around the world have now recognized the breed for over 20 years. TICA accepted the Sphynx breed for Championship status in 1986 and CFA recognized the breed for Championship status in 2002.
For further reading about the history of the Sphynx breed, please click on the following link that will take you to an article written by Lisa Bressler, Rinkurl Sphynx, for TICA back in December 1998. (used with permission) https://sphynxcatinfo.com/historical-sphynx-tica-trend-article/
-Cyndee Hill