Khaleesi Traditional Burmese Cats 

American Burmese

The Burmese cat is one of the four national cats of Thailand. Its ancestors are thought to have been temple cats that were given to young  monks as part of their training.  The modern Burmese breed was started in America in 1930 when  Dr. Joseph G. Thompson , a retired Navy medical officer living in  San Francisco, obtained a young female cat named Wong Mau.  She was a “small, fined boned, walnut-brown” cat from the Orient – probably from Burma, a region now known as Myanmar. Unlike other breeders of the time, Dr. Thompson didn't believe that Wong Mau was  chocolate Siamese but rather unique new breed.  He worked with  two established cat breeders, Virginia Cobb  of the Newton cattery  and Billie Gerst  of the Gerstdale cattery and  a prominent  geneticist, Dr. Clyde E. Keeler,  to  develop a  breeding program  to isolate Wong Mau ‘s unique traits. As there were no other similar cat in the US, Wong Mau was first bred to an imported Seal Siamese cat from Thailand named Tai Mau. Their kittens were either Siamese and pointed in color or like Mau solid dark-brown. Successive breeding of the dark-brown kittens produced a true-breeding solid dark-brown colored cat, now known as the sable Burmese. The result of the breeding program was the establishment of the American Burmese cat and discovery of the Burmese color restriction gene, sepia (cb). *Most of the Burmese cats in the US can trace their roots back to  Dr. Thompson’s cat, Wong Mau.

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European Burmese

In 1949, three Burmese  cats were imported  from the US to Brittan by Lillian France. Kittens produced from them were immediately popular in the UK cat clubs and the demand for them was high. Over the next 30 years only 21 American Burmese were imported to the UK. To expand the breeds numbers many European breeders decided to continue crossing Burmese to Siamese cats, resulting in a divergent line of Burmese cats now know as European or “foreign” Burmese which look different than their American counterparts.

 

Burmese colors

1955 the first blue Burmese cat was born in England, Sealcoat Blue Surprise. Earlier US Burmese cats had  produced kittens of a  lighter brown color (now called chocolate) as well as blue kittens  but most US Burmese breeders had decided to select and breed only the sable cats. In 1960, Blue Burmese were recognized with Grand Champion status and by 1980, four colors of Burmese  were being bred and recognized by the registration associations; sable, chocolate, blue and the dilute chocolate, lilac. In Europe, other colors were developed, some by chance and others by design, including cream, red and Tortoiseshell. Based on current feline genetics,  it is thought that Wong Mau carried both the blue and chocolate dilute genes and that she was  a Burmese-Tonkinese hybrid.  

 

* Sepia is a  mutation of the albino gene which  causes a genetically black cat to turn sepia brown by reducing the amount of pigment produced.  Because sepia is thermo-sensitive, the pigment is darker at the points of the cat like the tail and ears, where the skin is cooler, and slightly lighter on the body which the skin temperature is warmer. The first paper on Feline  genetics  by the original breeding group was published on the Burmese cat in the Journal of Heredity in 1943. Dr. Thompson died of a heart attack before it was published.

 

 

Ref:

http://www.burmese-cats-alliance.com/history.htm

http://cfa.org/Breeds/BreedsAB/Burmese/BurmeseArticle.aspx

http://cfa.org/Breeds/BreedsCJ/EuropeanBurmese.aspx

Harper's Illustrated Hand book of CATS.

http://www.burmesecatclub.com/history.htm

Steve Crow – UK Burmese Breeding Policy – Version 3, Sept13

“Robinson’s Genetics for Cat Breeders & Veterinarians” by Vella, Shelton, McGonagle and Stanglein