Cats
as 1952. A longhaired Abyssinian was exhibited in Australia as far back as 1965. It was not
until 1967 that they were bred in the USA in a deliberate manner. In Britain, the longhaired
variants were generally hushed up until a breeder went public at a cat show in 1971. Always
blinkered in its outlook, the British cat fancy made a great effort to eradicate the rogue
longhair gene by clamping down on pedigrees in which it had shown up. Somalis from the
USA were imported into continental Europe in 1977 although longhaired Abyssinians had
cropped up in litters prior to that. They were already being bred and shown in Australia and
New Zealand. Finally in 1982 (when the Somali has achieved respectability overseas), the
British cat fancy woke up to the attractiveness of the Somali and cats from the USA were
imported.
The Suqutranese was first shown in Britain in March 1990 and is a sparkling white cat with
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