Free to use! The Egyptian Mau is a small to medium-sized, short to medium-haired rare standardised cat breed. It bears a solid or spotted tabby coat pattern, which makes the Mau relatively unique as it is one of the few naturally spotted tabby breeds of domesticated cat. The spots of the Mau only occur on the tips of the hairs of its coat. History Breed development Black silver spotted tabby Mau In 1953 in Italy, Princess Natalie Trubetskoy saw a cat belonging to the Egyptian ambassador to Italy and after asking about the cat she persuaded him to help her obtain a cat from Cairo. She obtained a female named Baba, who was later bred with the ambassador's cat. A male bronze tabby was born and he was bred back to his mother to produce a female named Lisa. These progenitors were first shown in 1955 at the Rome Cat Show. English fanciers attempted to reproduce this novel breed by using Abyssinians, Siamese, and tabby cats which became the Ocicat. Princess Natalie travelled with her three Maus to the United States in 1956 and in the following year Baba became a champion. The U.S. Maus are purportedly from Baba, although other reports claim they are descended from a pair named Gepa and Ludol, brought into the country in 1953. Genetic origins Feline genome data shows that the Egyptian Mau is very closely related to the Maine Coon, Korat, and Westen Turkish Angoras (different from Turkish Angora landrace cats). Phylogenetic tree research demonstrates that the Egyptian Mau belongs to the group of Western-derived breeds. The East Mediterranean/Anatolian group was excluded from the study since breeds thought to originate there actually do. Breed recognition The breed first received championship in 1968 with the Cat Fanciers Federation (CFF) followed later on with recognition from the Cat Fanciers' Association (CFA) in 1977 and The International Cat Association (TICA) in 1979. By the 1990s there were breeders in North America, Europe, and Japan. The Egyptian Mau did not reach British shores until 1998 when the first Maus were imported by Melissa Bateson, 8 years after it received full recognition from the Governing Council of the Cat Fancy (GCCF). Popularity Egyptian Maus are a relatively rare breed worldwide. In 2018, the Egyptian Mau ranked at position 27 out of 45 cat breeds registered with the CFA. Fewer than 200 kittens are registered with the GCCF each year. In 2022, only 39 Mau kittens were registered at the GCCF, ranking the cat breed at position 27 out of 40 breeds in popularity. In the 2024 statistics of FIFe, one of the major global cat registries, the breed ranked at position 31 out of 54 breeds in popularity, comprising 0.1% of their total registered kittens that year, which translates to 113 cats.
