Occasionally, you find Thai cats with little white spots on paws or tail.
Since the cats are genetically without white (s/s), these white spots have to be polygenetically predisposed. Such "slips" unfortunately still occur most commonly with races without admitted piebald white spotting. (Nowadays, Siamese cat with white in some associations is recognized as Seychellois.)
Thus, the mode of inheritance will be undetected for a long time because a long and far going back pedigree would be necesarry, for this defect may not occur for 10-20 Generationen and more.
For many people strabismus and Siamese cat/Thai cat belong togeher. But it is a hereditary visual defect whih should lead to breeding disqualification. The cats can only focus on things by squinting, some squint permanentely.
Occasionally nystagmus comes along.
Nystagmus means involuntary rhythmical movements of the eyeball; a twitch of the eye; with slow motion in one direction and subsequently fast motion in the opposite direction (nystagmus is named after this opposite direction!), but also steadily oscillating motions (undulating nystagmus). Nystagmus is found especially in Siamese cats, sometimes also in Oriental cats.
Congenitally this defect seems to have the same neuropathological base as strabismus. Siamese cats like other animals with albino type have an abnormal number of nerve fibres which cross each othe in the chiasma opticum. In ordinary cats 65% of the verve fibres cross each other. In the Siamese cat the percentage of crossing fibres is higher.
The relation to partial almisnism can lead to strong impairment of binocular vision. The visual disturbance does not yet exist at birth, strabismus only envolves at the age of two to six month. It is assumed that strabismus is an active attempt of the cat to countervail the abnormal projection of the retina inside the brain.
For strabismus there also exist special approbriate Siamese cat/ Thai cat legends:
During her pregnancy the cat Chula should guard the golden drinking cup of Buddha. Because she stared at the cup for such a long time, it became increasingly difficult for her to look straight ahead and so she srarted sqinting and all her children joined her; in other palaces the cars should also guard the treasures and because of constantly staring at them they started sqinting.
Whenever strabismus is detected it means the exclusion of an exhibition or the tetention of the title. Sqinting cats do not suffer from any restrictions in real life.
www.chir.vetmed.uni-muenchen.de
Krankheiten der Katze, Vera Schmidt und Marian C. Horzinek 2014
Geriatrie bei Hund und Katze, Wilfried Kraft 2003
Vortex mutations of the tail are called kinked tail, they may have different causes, shapes and degrees.
Kinked tails may not always be recogniceable immediately after birth, some stiffnesses of vertebrae only become apparent or worsen in young adults. Deformations or adhesions of the vertebrae can occur after accidents (e.g. pinching), more often it they are congential.
It is presumed that an (autosomal) recessive inheritance ist responsible fot he various amlpositions of the vertebrae. Different opinions suggest a polygenetic inheritance.
(autosomal) recessive inheriatance = Some genetically determind disorders or diseases are recessively inheritad. That means, you have to inherit two modified copiey of the same gene (each parent passes on one modified copy), to get a certain genetically ditermind disorder or disease.
polygenetic inheritance = Polygenic inheritance is a particular form of inheritance. As the name aready says here we habe the inheritance of a number of genes because „poly“ comes from the Greek and means aus dem Griechischen und bedeutet „many, a number of“.
Both parents inherit this defect to their kittens. Deformations of the tail frequently arise together with other defects of the spine, even with lethal effects of taillessness of the Manx. Moreover, it can be assumed that the deformation multiply throughout the generations.
Thus, it is suggested not to breed with affected animals or their parents.
Each detected kinked tail besides the suspension of the breed carrier also means the exclusion of an exhibition or the tetention of the title.
However, espescially with the Siamese cat/ Thai cat it is possible that humas maintained and bred kinked tails on purpose
There are anecdotal reports of farmers in old Siam taking their cats for huntig. They should catch small rodents and birds. The farmer fixed colourful ribbons at the kinked tails to recognize his cats and see which one was successful. To benefit from the hunt the Siamese cat should even bring the prey to the farmer.
This would also be an explanation for the persistent retrieval of so many Siamese cats/Thai cats. Breeding through generations with these features could have firmly anchored the kinked tail and the retrieval in the genes of the Siamese cats/Thai cats. This very day about twothirds of all stray cats in East Asia do have kinked tails.
There are even some legends explaining the kinked tail
*of a princess being afraid to lose her precious ring during her bath and therefore having a Siamese cat with a kinked tail so that no ring should slip down off the tail;
*of guarding precious chalices which the cats clasped with their tails for a long time so that they were not straight anymore;
*even of the guarding of a golden drinking cup of Buddha where the cat Chula clasped her tail around…
Kinked tails occur in cats of all breeds, also in house cats.
Cats with a kinked do not suffer from any restrictions in real life. Their life expactancy corrresponds 1:1 to those with perfect tails. A surgical correction is not indicated and shows no success.
Zum rezessiven Erbgang: www.eurogentest.org
Zum polygenetischen Erbgang: www.oliverkohlhaas.de/biologie
www.life-with-siamese-cats.com/cat-legends.html
Tales of a tail – Legends of Siamese Cat
Rassetypische Erkrankungen der Siamkatzen, in: katze-und-du.at
Orthopädie bei der Katze: Erkrankungen und Therapie des Bewegungsapparates, Harry W. Scott,Ronald McLaughlin, 2008, S.306
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