What makes Maine Coon cats special?

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It is fairly obvious to me why a lot of people regard the Maine Coon cat as special. They are the biggest domestic cat breed and the biggest domestic cat barring the top end wild cat hybrids such as the F1 Savannah cat. Size counts in the world of cats.

What makes Maine Coon cats special?
 What makes Maine Coon cats special? Size is the answer and this is one of many
huge MCs on the internet. They seem to be quite common nowadays. Picture: in 
public domain.

And there are some fascinatingly huge Maine coon cats featured on the Internet. They look like large dogs. There is a kind of obsession with big domestic cats. But size in any context is important and normally it is big that is better than small. 

So it is about humans playing God. It is artificial selection or otherwise known as selective breeding. Nature wouldn't have done this. The original Maine Coon cats would have been like any other domestic cat with medium-long hair. They would have been quite non-descript relative to some of the day's super outstanding individual cats that you see on the Internet today.

Amazing human face on cute Maine Coon - very special.
Amazing human face on cute Maine Coon - very special. Photo in public domain.

The breeders simply start off a breeding line with large foundation cats and go from there. If they inject new a bloodline into the breeding line they'd probably instroduce and even larger cat. They just keep refining and polishing the largeness of their cats. They let the gene which creates this large size do its work.

Another fascination that people have are the cats that look like humans. And you get this with one particular Russian Maine Coon breeder who I believe lives in China. She creates anthropomorphised Maine Coon cats. They have the most extraordinary expressions. You must have seen them. This is bound to make these particular cats special but I don't know of any other breeder who does this.

Amazing lynx tipped ears on a black Maine Coon
Amazing lynx tipped ears on a black Maine Coon. Photo in public domain.

Also the overall appearance of the Maine Coon is interesting with their very large ears and tufts of hair sticking out of the ears and their lion-like faces when the muzzle is selectively bred to be very square and large. Yes, some Maine Coon breeders breed their cats to look like lions and they succeed as it happens.

Maine Coon with lion's face
Maine Coon with lion's face. Credit: see photo.

But the bottom line is about size. Nothing beats a big domestic cat provided the size is not because of obesity! Maine Coons are quite rangy and very slender underneath that shaggy fur.

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