Tuesday, October 11, 2005
Polydactyl Sounds Like Pterodactyl
After I posted the picture of Cambridge's foot, I started to wonder about cat toes. Do they have four or five of them? This reminded me of my childhood cat, Doris Schwartz. Yes, I was kinda into Fame as a girl - the leotards, leg warmers and dancing really got me hooked, as did the dorky "Get In Shape Girl" commercials. Remember that catchy jingle?"Get in Shape Girl, You've got the feeling,
Get in shape girl, It's so appealing!"
Yes! I'm a child of the 80s, what can I say?
Doris came to mind because there was something very unique about her. See how I use the term "unique"? That's nice isn't it - it makes her sound special and cool (which, of course, she was). But I'm afraid that Huz (who wasn't Huz at the time but was merely the Boyfriend) wasn't so kind with his words. No. He decided to call the cat of his girlfriend (the only one that loved him, mind you) the Mutant Cat. That's right, the Mutant Cat.
Why on earth would he do that? Other than being mean to show affection? Because my cat had a multi-toe superpower. Yep, she had 6 toes on one foot and 7 on the other. It was really quite cool, except that it probably cost my Mom a fortune to get her declawed.
I looked this phenomenon up (it's called polydactyl) and found this funky picture:
Awesome. I don't remember if this is what Doris' feet looked like, but I wish I had taken her footprint and framed it.
I'd like to tell Huz that not only was Doris not a mutant, but that she was actually more evolutionarily advanced. Check this out:
"A correspondent to the New Scientist noted that the innermost extra toes on the front paws are often opposable and some cats use them with quite startling proficiency to manipulate small objects with almost human dexterity. Some owners of polydactyl cats joke that their cats are more intelligent because of this and represent the next stage in feline evolution - the ability to open cartons and cans unaided."
Too bad I didn't put her opposing digits to good use and make her wash the damn dishes for me or something. |
