44 Fun Facts About Black Cat

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

The Bombay is the one breed whose standard allows no colour but black; its Kentucky creator spent years of line breeding and outcrossing before the CFA granted it championship status in 1976.

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

Sunlight fades eumelanin, the fragile pigment behind black fur, so a black cat that spends long hours basking can turn a rusty brownish-red.

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.

Kentucky breeder Nikki Horner crossed black American Shorthairs with which breed to create her 'parlor panther'?

Burmese cats gave Horner's new breed its build and American Shorthairs its jet-black coat; she wanted a house cat with the look of a miniature panther.

In British folklore, a black cat crossing your path is generally a sign of what?

Good luck is the British reading of a black cat crossing your path, the reverse of the usual American one; a Welsh folk rhyme adds that a black cat keeps illness from the house.

Which pope's 1233 decree described a demonic ritual involving a black cat?

Gregory IX's Vox in Rama of 1233, sent to German rulers and bishops, described heretics' rites in which a statue of a black cat came to life and was kissed by the initiates.

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

A white chest spot marks the Cat sith, a fairy black cat said to be as big as a dog; 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 seats Kaspar, carved by Basil Ionides, at any table that would otherwise be an unlucky size; the custom recalls an 1898 dinner whose host was shot dead weeks later.

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

Maneki-neko, the beckoning cat, comes in black to ward off evil; in the best-known legend, a temple cat waved a passing lord inside just before a thunderstorm broke.

The crew of which craft wore a joke 'Black Cat' patch in 1984 because their flight was first numbered 13?

Space Shuttle mission 41-C was first numbered STS-13, so its crew wore a joke patch with a black cat and a 13, then landed on Friday the 13th of April 1984.

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

Anarcho-syndicalism took the cat from the IWW union, whose artist Ralph Chaplin said his 'Sab Cat' stood for the slow-down, a way of striking while still on the job.

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

Cats Protection set up National Black Cat Day after finding black cats waited about a week longer than others for a home, simply because of the colour of their fur.

Which English football club is officially nicknamed the Black Cats?

Sunderland made the Black Cats its official nickname in 2000 after a fans' vote in which it beat 'the Mackems'; a black cat had featured on club emblems long before.

After Black Panther opened in 2018, shelters reported black cats being named after which of the film's characters?

T'Challa was among the names shelters reported for black cats adopted after the film, along with Shuri, Okoye and even Killmonger; one Texas cinema held a black-cat adoption event.

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

Trim, born at sea in 1799, sailed with Flinders on his circumnavigation of Australia; as a kitten he fell overboard, swam back and climbed a rope to get aboard.

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

Cossack and Ark Royal complete the famous tale, though doubt has been cast on its Bismarck opening: two photographs said to show Sam picture two different cats.

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

Gladstone was found wandering London's streets and taken in by Battersea before the Treasury recruited him in 2016 to keep down the mice in its Horse Guards Road offices.

India, a black cat named after a Texas Rangers ballplayer, lived in the White House with which president's family?

George W. Bush co-owned the Texas Rangers when the family kitten was named for slugger Rubén 'El Indio' Sierra; India lived to 18 and died at the White House weeks before his term ended.

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' first paired which two horror stars?

Boris Karloff and Béla Lugosi went on to share seven more films; this first pairing took almost nothing from Poe's story beyond its title.

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), which witch sisters curse Thackery Binx to live forever as a black cat?

The Sanderson sisters turn Thackery Binx into an immortal cat for interfering as they drain the life from his little sister Emily, so that he must live forever with his guilt.

In 'Sabrina the Teenage Witch', which talking black cat is a warlock punished for trying to take over the world?

Salem Saberhagen was sentenced by the Witches' Council to 100 years as a cat; on the sitcom an animatronic puppet handled his talking scenes while real cats did the rest.

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

Studio Ghibli's Kiki's Delivery Service, directed by Hayao Miyazaki, turns on a loss: midway through, a dejected Kiki finds she can no longer understand Jiji, or fly.

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, and it is the seat of her powers: a direct hit on the mark leaves her an ordinary cat.

What is the name of the Simpson family's black cat?

Snowball II is black despite the name: she replaced the family's first cat, a white one, whose death Marge reports in a Christmas letter in the 1989 series premiere.

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

Bagheera is a melanistic leopard, the black panther of India's jungles; the dark pigment hides his rosettes without removing them, and Disney's Baloo just calls him 'Baggy'.

Melanism in leopards is inherited as what kind of trait?

Leopard melanism is recessive, so two spotted parents can produce a black cub; in jaguars it is the reverse, a dominant trait that needs only one copy of the gene.

The black Kellas cat is a hybrid of the domestic cat and which wild relative?

The Scottish wildcat is the wild parent: after a gamekeeper snared one of the black cats in 1984, a museum study of eight specimens found that most were hybrids of the two.

Bastet was first shown as a lioness, like which fierce Egyptian warrior goddess, before softening into a cat?

Sekhmet kept the lioness form and the warrior's role, while Bastet's images softened over the centuries until, by the first millennium BC, she was shown as a cat.

Herodotus said Egypt's most devoutly kept festival honoured its cat goddess in which city?

Bubastis drew some 700,000 people by Herodotus's account; they came by boat with music and song, and drank more wine at the festival than in the rest of the year.

Which black cat, first seen on screen in 1919, became a cartoon superstar of the silent era?

Felix the Cat was a hit from his first film in 1919, but sound was his undoing: when the talkies arrived he was quickly eclipsed by Mickey Mouse.

Which pop star took the hard-rock single 'Black Cat' to number one in the US in 1990?

Janet Jackson wrote 'Black Cat' entirely by herself, the only song on Rhythm Nation 1814 she did, and its rock guitars took her to the top of the Hot 100.

What is Sylvester the cat's trademark exclamation?

'Sufferin' succotash!' is Sylvester's lisped catchphrase; Daffy Duck, who shares his sloppy lisp, has been known to borrow it.

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

The dominant B form of the TYRP1 gene gives black eumelanin; a cat must inherit the b or bl variant from both parents to come out chocolate or cinnamon instead.

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.

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

Toronto Animal Services waived its usual $75 fee for black cats in a 'cat adoption blitz' in honour of Black Friday, a pun aimed at cats the shelter said superstition may hold back.

Which actor, also Disney's Dr. Facilier, voices the unnamed black cat in the 2009 stop-motion film Coraline?

Keith David voices the sardonic black cat, who slips between the two worlds and warns Coraline what the Other World really is, in Henry Selick's film of Neil Gaiman's novella.

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

Green eyes disqualify a cat under the CFA standard, which calls for eyes in the copper range, the deeper and more brilliant the better; a nose or paw pad that isn't black rules a cat out too.

Which Russian novel features Behemoth, a huge talking black cat fond of vodka, chess and pistols?

The Master and Margarita brings the Devil's retinue to Moscow, and Behemoth, an enormous black tomcat with a taste for chess, vodka and sarcasm, is its wisecracking jester.

In Poe's 'The Black Cat', the mark on the second cat's fur slowly takes the shape of what?

A gallows is the shape the narrator sees forming in the second cat's one pale marking, a preview of his own fate: he tells the tale on the eve of his hanging.

A black cat that strolled past which team's dugout at Shea Stadium in 1969 is blamed for its late-season collapse?

The Chicago Cubs led their division for much of 1969 until a stray black cat walked past Ron Santo in the on-deck circle at Shea; the Mets overtook them and went on to win the World Series.