Cats
was not given. In 2004 I received information on a localised strain of bobtailed cats in one
part of Spain. According to Russell Meyers, a bobtail mutation has become fixed in cats
around the Spanish villages of La Drova and Barx in the mountains in the Gandia area near
Valencia. There he encountered two kittens with deformed tails. one, a male called Stitch, had
a half-length tail that bent back upon itself. The other, Milo, had a knobbly bit at the end of
her tail. The trait is known in the area as "Barx tail", Barx being a neighbouring village.
Meyers came across a large number of cats in the area with similar tails. The most likely
scenario is that a tomcat carrying the mutation fathered most of the kittens during one or
more breeding seasons. He was not necessarily the cat in whom the mutation originally
occurred, but by fathering the majority of kittens his genes - including the mutation - would
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