Cats
in China. Once the pet of Japanese nobles, it eventually spread to the general population but
was not considered anything more than a common moggy. It attracted the interest of
American breeders in 1968 and was recognised in the US in 1978. The longhaired version
had always existed (longhair is due to a recessive gene) but was not given breed status until
1991.
In a study comparing the genetics of several breeds (Lipinski MJ, et al., The ascent of cat
breeds: genetic evaluations of breeds and worldwide random-bred populations, Genomics
(2007), the Japanese Bobtail was found to be more closely related to Western cats than to
Asian cats, though the breed showed some Asian genetic influence. Cats are not indigenous to
Japan, but reached the islands along Asian trade routes hundreds of years ago. However, the
Japanese Bobtail was imported into the USA in 1968 and developed as a breed in the USA.
annaabi.ee 
