THROWBACKS

A "throwback" is an animal whose conformation, and often temperament, resembles the ancestral type rather than resembling its breed. This happens due to recessive (hidden) genes inherited from the parents re-combining or a mutation returning a gene back to its wild type. The complexities of inheritance means that a small percentage of domestic kittens, born to friendly pet cats and raised in a household, do not inherit the necessary genes for them to have domestic temperaments. No matter that they are raised in a loving environment and their siblings and parents are friendly pets, such kittens simply lack the genes that allow a cat to be domesticated. Such cases are rare, but one of the best documented seems to be that of "Thumper" the Manx.

In August 1975, Mrs Rosemary Morley of Brighton, Sussex, England, bought a male Manx from a leading breeder in the Isle of Man. The kitten was flown from the breeder to England at the age of 14 weeks. This is all quite normal. Thumper, described as an "orange" kitten looked nothing like a Manx apart from the absent tail. His body shape was wrong and his face was pointed instead of round. At the age of 14 weeks, Thumper's claws were as large as those of an adult cat. Fearing a mix-up, Mrs Morley contacted the breeder, who assured her that the sire and dam of her odd looking kitten were normal domestic Manx cats born in the Isle of Man. Thumper was an aloof youngster, though this can happen if a breeder does not properly socialise the kittens before homing them. As he matured, he developed huge whiskers, double canines that were chisel-ended and enormously long claws.

Thumper instinctively adopted the lifestyle of a wild cat and shunned the domestic life. He ate everything he killed while out hunting (an activity at which he excelled) and specialised in snakes in lizards. He also developed a banshee-like scream. His mature size was 36 inches (91 cm) long and weighed 12 lbs (5.44 kg). He was not dependent on his owner for anything and did not seek human companionship. Like a wild cat, he spent most of his life hidden in long grass, shrubs or woodland though he did not enjoy hot weather and liked to cool off quickly by lying in the fridge with the door open.

Veterinary surgeons thought that he was either a feral cat or was extremely neurotic. It seemed that he had not inherited the genes for domesticity and he had inherited a bunch of genes that made him look, and act, wild. In June 1978, zoo vet David Taylor identified him as a rare genetic regression to the African wildcat (Felis lybica) - in other words he was a throwback to the wild ancestor of the domestic cat. The scarab beetle marking on Thumper's forehead was said to be the tell-tale sign as this distinguishes F lybica from all other wild cats, however it is widely found in domestic tabby cats and isn't much of an indicator! Sadly, in the summer of 1980, Thumper became seriously ill after eating poison and stopped eating. He risked dehydration because he normally obtained all his fluids from his kills and from assorted vegetation that he also ate. In a rare admission of dependency, he allowed Mrs Morley to dropper feed him while he remained in his "den" - on top of a 4 ft 6 in (1.37 metres) stack of boxes in her attic. Sadly, the poison caused irreparable brain damage, and this rare throwback died on 4 December 1980.

I get regular emails about Cuty Boy the alleged feline mathematician. Cuty Boy is a much publicised cream Persian from Bar Dubai whose alleged passion and talent for arithmetic was discovered when he was a kitten. It is claimed that he can add, divide, multiply, subtract, find square roots and solve algebra problems. Cuty Boy was bought from a Dubai pet shop by Hema Mohan Chandra, from Kerala, who is also his stage handler. Her son, Renjit, noticed Cuty Boy's ability to understand commands. Hema claims the cat can indicate "yes", "no", "left" and "right" and that he replied "yes" when asked if he understood numbers. She then taught him to count up to 20. Cuty Boy gives his answers by nose-bumping her face the correct number of times. Numbers too large for nose-bumping are indicated using a set of answer cards. The cat selects the correct answer by twitching his tail and looking at the card. To convince sceptics of Cuty Boy's abilities, the owners had him tested by maths teacher Sahadevan Panicker from Dubai's Gulf Modern School. Unfortunately, Cuty Boy has to be pushed by his family to perform in public.

But what is really happening? The phenomenon is called involuntary/unconscious cuing. Some cats are adept at reading human body language even if the humans are not aware they are transmitting body language. Studies of "counting horses" (who tapped a hoof the correct number of times in response to an arithmetic puzzle) uncovered the truth. The animals picked up on almost imperceptible twitches from the handler/trainer. The handler was mentally urging the animal to tap again and get the right answer. This mental urging leaked into a facial or body twitch and at each "signal", the horse tapped a hoof. In some cases, the handler was unaware that he was leaking signals to the horse (this may also be true of Cuty Boy's owner). The studies found that when the body language was obscured, or when a the animal worked with an unfamiliar handler, the animal lost its ability to count. When the handler didn't know the answer (or was deliberately given an incorrect answer by the person setting a complex problem), the counting animal also got the answer wrong. Set pieces such as selecting the correct card were learnt in much the same way - picking up on tiny signals, including "left" and "right".

Cuty Boy also understands phrases in 8 languages, including Gujarati, Persian, Malayalam (Hema's mother tongue), English, Arabic and French and can identify objects when asked in those languages. This is not evidence of great linguistic skills or of a psychic cat. While the meanings of some of those words will have been learnt, Cuty Boy will be relying on his owner's involuntary cues regardless of the spoken language.

Counting, linguistic and psychic animals do not perform well in controlled conditions. Owners blame this on the animal being upset and refusing to co-operate, but the truth is that the animal is not being given any cues. Cuty Boy's unwillingness to perform in public is probably linked to difficulty in concentrating on the owner's signals when there are so many distractions for both cat and owner. In a public environment, there is greater tension and this makes the owner's body language unclear. In spite of recent relentless publicity, Cuty Boy is not a mathematical prodigy. He is simply a performing animal with a flair for reading body language and doing a counting trick that was debunked over a century ago. He is the 21st Century version of "Clever Hans".

Note: The most famous counting critter was William von Osten's horse, Clever Hans (Kluge Hans), in Berlin. Hans answered tricky maths questions (including fractions) by tapping out the answer with his hoof. He was first publicly exhibited in 1891 and several scientists became convinced that there was no signalling or trickery. They were impressed that Hans performed almost as well without von Osten as with him. In 1904, psychologist Oskar Pfungst studied Hans and noticed that if the nobody present knew the correct answer, neither did Hans. When the horse wore blinkers to obscure his view or when the questioner was further away, Hans got the answer wrong. He deduced that Hans was getting a signal from the person asking the question. Pfungst noticed that when a person asked a question, they tilted their head slightly without even realising it. This signalled Hans to begin tapping. When Hans got to the right answer, the excited questioner lifted their head, raised an eyebrow or smiled ... and Hans stopped counting! Hans was clever because he could read human body language. Another example was Lady Wonder the "telepathic horse" tested by JB Rhine. In 1927, Lady Wonder was seen to knock over alphabet blocks in response to questions. Two years later, Lady Wonder failed testing and Rhine concluded that the horse had lost its psychic abilities. Like Clever Hans, Lady Wonder had previously been picking up on subtle human body language. Cuty Boy is simply a feline equivalent of Clever Hans.

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