Is the Maine Coon the biggest cat?

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No, the Maine Coon is not the biggest cat but the biggest domestic cat excluding the high filial wild cat hybrids such as the F1 Savannah cat which are nearly always bigger, by the way. The Maine Coon weight can be exaggerated as we often see very large individuals. The average weight is something around 19 pounds for larger cats and it varies between males and females of course.

Dutch Maine Coon bred by Dani. Photo by Dani. This is a nice natural Maine Coon.


I'm being precise because if you refer to "biggest cat" you are really referring to all the cats on the planet which includes the wild cat species. But through selective breeding the Maine Coon has evolved into being the biggest domestic cat. This was not always the case.

Let's remind ourselves that this very popular cat breed started off in around the late 1800s as a farm cat in the state of Maine, USA. They were shaggy, long-haired barn cats. They were attractive and at the beginning of the cat fancy i.e. the cat shows and cat breeding, it was decided that the 'Maine cat', as it was then described, could become a nice show cat.

It was such a handsome a random bread cat at that time that in a short space of time they became the best show cat in America by winning the first American cat show at Madison Square Garden, New York, in May, 1895. Perhaps the attraction of this breed is their naturalness. It is a shame that the Russian breeders have bred them to extreme to the point where they have lost this naturalness. I think it is essential that they retain it.

Russian breeders work under a different cat association, the World Cat Federation as opposed to the Cat Fanciers' Association or The International Cat Association in America. These associations dictate the appearance of the breed and in Europe and Russia (Russia is very keen on their purebred cats) they allow them to breed huge Maine Coon cats with extraordinarily square muzzles and sometimes even human faces. They appeal to people because they are very interesting but the original cat was never like this.

Location: Maine, USA

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