47 Fun Facts About Black Cat

Most black cats have eyes of which colour, thanks to their high melanin content?

Most black cats have golden or yellow irises: the heavy melanin that blackens the coat also pigments the iris, while blue eyes need a lack of pigment.

Which is the only cat breed that comes exclusively in black?

The Bombay, developed in Kentucky in the 1950s, is the one breed whose standard allows no colour but black; its tight, glossy coat is often likened to patent leather.

A black cat's coat can 'rust' to a reddish-brown shade after too much of what?

Prolonged sunlight bleaches the black pigment eumelanin, so a black cat that basks outdoors can turn a rusty brown at the tips; the colour returns as new fur grows.

A cat whose dark fur has white roots is known by what name?

A black smoke cat has hairs that are black along most of their length but white or silver at the root, so the pale undercoat shows when the fur parts.

Which big cat was Nikki Horner's all-black breed, created in Louisville from 1958, meant to resemble in miniature?

Nikki Horner wanted a 'parlor panther', a house cat with the look of a big jungle panther in miniature; her first attempt failed and the breed reached CFA championship status in 1976.

In the folklore of Britain and Ireland, a black cat crossing your path is generally a sign of what?

In British and Irish folklore a black cat crossing your path brings good luck, the reverse of the usual American reading; Welsh tradition adds that a black cat in the house brings good health.

Which pope's 1233 decree describing a demonic ritual linked black cats to witchcraft?

Gregory IX's bull Vox in Rama of 1233, addressed to the archbishop of Mainz, described heretics' rites in which a statue of a black cat came to life and was kissed by the worshippers.

The Cat sìth of Scottish mythology is a fairy black cat with what distinguishing mark?

The Cat sith is described as a black cat the size of a dog with a single white spot on its chest; Highland lore held it could steal a soul from a corpse before burial.

Which London hotel seats Kaspar, a carved black cat, as an extra dinner guest?

The Savoy has seated Kaspar, carved by Basil Ionides in 1927, at any table whose headcount superstition deems unlucky, a custom born of an 1898 dinner after which a guest was shot dead.

In Japan, black cats are considered auspicious and are associated with which beckoning figurine?

Black maneki-neko, the beckoning-cat figurine with one paw raised, are sold in Japan as charms against evil spirits and illness; the figure dates from the Edo period.

Early US TV stations on which 'unlucky' VHF channel often used a black cat as a mascot?

NASA later reworked Shuttle mission numbering to avoid an STS-13; that crew's joke patch showed a black cat and the number 13.

The arch-backed black 'sab cat' became a symbol of which political movement?

Ralph Chaplin of the IWW said his 'Sab Cat' was meant to symbolise the slow-down as a way of striking on the job.

Which UK charity designated October 27 as Black Cat Day to encourage adoptions?

Cats Protection launched National Black Cat Day on October 27, 2011, after finding black cats took longer than others to rehome, partly because they photograph poorly.

In which month is the US 'Black Cat Appreciation Day', created by Wayne H. Morris?

Black Cat Appreciation Day is August 17; Wayne H. Morris started it in 2011 in memory of his sister June, whose beloved black cat was named Sinbad.

Which 2018 superhero film sparked a fad for adopting dark-coated cats and naming them T'Challa or Shuri?

After Black Panther opened in February 2018, shelters reported adopters taking home black cats and naming them T'Challa, Shuri or Okoye in tribute to the film's characters.

Which black cat sailed with Matthew Flinders as he mapped Australia and now appears on statues beside him?

Trim, born at sea in 1797, sailed with Flinders on the Investigator's circumnavigation of Australia; as a kitten he fell overboard, swam back and climbed a rope aboard.

Ship's cat 'Unsinkable Sam' survived the Bismarck and which two British warships in 1941?

Sam, first called Oscar, was picked up from the Bismarck, then survived the torpedoing of HMS Cossack in October 1941 and of HMS Ark Royal a month later, ending his days in Belfast.

Which black cat became Chief Mouser of HM Treasury in 2016?

Gladstone, a black cat from Battersea Dogs & Cats Home, became the Treasury's Chief Mouser in July 2016, joining Larry at Number 10 and Palmerston at the Foreign Office.

India, also called Willie, was a black cat who lived in the White House with which president's family?

India, nicknamed Willie, lived with George W. Bush's family for 18 years, moving from Texas to the White House in 2001 and dying there in January 2009.

What is the name of the doomed pet in Edgar Allan Poe's 1843 story 'The Black Cat'?

Pluto is the narrator's beloved black cat; in a drunken rage he cuts out one of its eyes and later hangs it from a tree, the crime that sets the story's horrors in motion.

Poe's 'The Black Cat' first appeared in the summer of 1843 in which publication?

'The Black Cat' ran in the Saturday Evening Post of Philadelphia in 1843; its narrator, awaiting execution for walling up his murdered wife, is exposed when the cat howls from inside the wall.

The 1934 horror film 'The Black Cat' was the first of eight films to pair which two horror stars?

It was Universal's biggest hit of the year, despite having almost nothing to do with the Poe story it was 'suggested by'.

Le Chat Noir, often called the first modern cabaret, opened in 1881 in which district of Paris?

Le Chat Noir opened in November 1881 on the Boulevard de Rochechouart in Montmartre under Rodolphe Salis, drawing painters and poets; Steinlen's 1896 poster made its black cat famous.

Marvel's Black Cat, Felicia Hardy, first appeared in 1979 as an adversary of which superhero?

Felicia Hardy debuted in The Amazing Spider-Man #194 (July 1979) as a cat burglar like her father, and the Black Cat soon became Spider-Man's on-off love interest.

In 'Hocus Pocus' (1993), in which year do the Sanderson sisters turn Thackery Binx into an immortal cat?

The sisters curse Thackery Binx in Salem in 1693, the year they are hanged; exactly 300 years later Max Dennison lights the Black Flame Candle and brings them back.

For how long was Sabrina's Salem Saberhagen sentenced to live as a cat for trying to take over the world?

Salem Saberhagen, a warlock, was sentenced by the Witches' Council to 100 years as a cat; Nick Bakay voiced him and an animatronic puppet often stood in for the real cats.

Kiki's talking black cat Jiji appears in a 1989 animated film made by which company?

Kiki's Delivery Service (1989), directed by Hayao Miyazaki for Studio Ghibli, was Japan's highest-grossing domestic film of that year; Jiji's dry voice belongs to Rei Sakuma in Japanese.

Luna, the talking black cat who tells Usagi she is a Sailor Guardian, has what mark on her forehead?

Luna bears a crescent moon on her forehead, the mark of the Moon Kingdom; her counterpart Artemis carries the same mark and guides Sailor Venus.

Snowball II, the black cat on 'The Simpsons', replaced an original Snowball who had fur of what colour?

The original Snowball was white and was killed by a car before the series began; her black successor Snowball II debuted in the 1989 premiere 'Simpsons Roasting on an Open Fire'.

Bagheera, who mentors Mowgli in 'The Jungle Book', is scientifically what kind of animal?

Bagheera is a melanistic leopard: the excess dark pigment of the Indian jungle's black leopards still leaves faint rosettes visible in strong light; Disney's Baloo just calls him 'Baggy'.

Melanism in leopards is inherited as what kind of trait?

Leopard melanism is recessive, caused by a mutation in the ASIP gene, so two spotted parents can produce a black cub; in jaguars it is the reverse, an MC1R variant that needs only one copy.

The black Kellas cat of Scotland is a hybrid of the domestic cat and what?

The Kellas cat is a black hybrid of the Scottish wildcat and the domestic cat; the first specimen was snared by a gamekeeper near Kellas, Moray, in 1984, and the National Museum of Scotland later examined several.

The Egyptian goddess Bastet, later a cat, was originally worshipped as what animal?

Bastet was first depicted as a lioness, a fierce protector of the king, and was softened into a cat goddess by the first millennium BC; the warrior Sekhmet remained the lioness aspect.

Herodotus called the annual festival of Bastet in which Egyptian city the largest in the country?

Herodotus, writing in the mid-5th century BC, said the festival at Bubastis in the Nile Delta drew some 700,000 people, who came by boat with music and much wine.

Which Egyptian crown prince's pet cat Ta-Miu was given her own limestone sarcophagus around 1350 BC?

Prince Thutmose, eldest son of Amenhotep III, had his cat Ta-Miu buried in a carved limestone sarcophagus, now in the Egyptian Museum in Cairo, one of the earliest pet cats known by name.

Sylvester, the black-and-white Looney Tunes cat forever chasing Tweety, debuted in which 1945 cartoon?

Sylvester debuted in Life with Feathers (1945), pursued by a suicidal lovebird rather than Tweety; he went on to appear in three Oscar-winning shorts, including Tweetie Pie and Birds Anonymous.

What is Sylvester the cat's trademark exclamation?

'Sufferin' succotash!' is Sylvester's lisped catchphrase, a minced oath for 'suffering Saviour'; Daffy Duck, who shares Mel Blanc's voice, borrows it now and then.

Which gene variant does a cat need to produce black eumelanin rather than chocolate or cinnamon?

The gene codes for the enzyme TYRP1; chocolate and cinnamon are its two recessive variants.

A solid black cat gets its single colour mostly from a gene that suppresses which coat pattern?

Two copies of the non-agouti allele suppress the tabby pattern, so the cat appears solid black, though faint ghost tabby markings can still show in strong light.

Some US shelters once paused black-cat adoptions ahead of which holiday?

Some shelters refused to adopt out black cats in the weeks before Halloween, fearing they would be used as props or harmed; welfare groups found no pattern of such abuse and said the pause only kept cats homeless longer.

Which Canadian city held a 2014 Black Friday event where black cats could be adopted without the usual $75 fee?

Toronto Animal Services offered black cats free of its usual $75 adoption fee on Black Friday, November 28, 2014, playing on the day's name to move its hardest-to-home animals.

Which actor voices the unnamed black cat in the 2009 stop-motion film Coraline?

Keith David voices Coraline's sardonic black cat, which can talk only in the Other World; the film was Laika's first feature, adapted from Neil Gaiman's 2002 novella.

Which eye colour disqualifies a cat under the standard for Nikki Horner's all-black breed?

Green eyes are a disqualification in the CFA standard for the breed, which calls for eyes in the copper range, the deeper and more brilliant the better.

A deficiency of which amino acid can cause a black cat's coat to 'rust' to a reddish shade?

Tyrosine is the precursor of eumelanin, the black pigment; a diet short of it turns a black cat's coat reddish-brown, an effect reversed once the amino acid is restored.

In German folklore, a black cat brings good luck if it walks in which direction across your path?

German folklore reads a black cat crossing from left to right as a favourable sign, while one crossing right to left is an ill omen.

How does the second cat in Poe's story differ from the first in appearance?

The second cat has a large white patch on its chest that the narrator comes to see as the shape of a gallows; otherwise it is the first cat's double, down to the missing eye.

Which 1843 Poe story has a killer confess after hearing a sound beneath the floorboards?

In The Tell-Tale Heart, published in January 1843, the narrator hides his victim under the floorboards and, convinced the police can hear the dead man's heart, confesses; The Black Cat followed later that year.