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Maine Coon physical adaptations against harsh winter climate in Maine

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Maine winters The state of Maine in the United States has a cold winter climate. I'm told that the cold season lasts for 3.3 months from late November to early March with an average daily high temperature below 34°F which is just above freezing point. The coldest month of the year in Maine is January with an average low of 8°F and a high of 23°F which is well below freezing. In the snow! Image: MikeB. Adaptations over 400 years in Maine The point of the introduction is that if we agree that the Maine Coon cat originates in the state of Maine which it almost certainly does, we can suggest that this cat breed developed physical adaptations in its coat primarily for survival in harsh winter climates. Maine in the late 1800s. Image in public domain. Coat The coat is shaggy and has a water-resistant top layer of fur. The downy undercoat is like a duck down filling for a duvet. Shaggy coat! Image in public domain. Hind legs The hind legs have thick fur down to their hocks. This gives the...
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'Maine Coon' named after a French river and the raccoon

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This is mainly about the origin of the name 'Maine' in Maine Coon. Although, it may interest some to know that Pinterest and TikTok do not allow searches for 'Maine Coon' as it is impolite and unacceptable today due to the woke movement to use the word 'Coon'. I understand that. But if you want to search for 'Maine Coon cats' you have to search for 'Maine cats' instead. Times have changed and the cat fancy should change in line with modern thinking and culture. 'Maine Coon' named after a French river and the raccoon. This is the Maine River fronted by a Maine Coon! Image: MikeB Maine Obviously 'Maine' comes from the US state of Maine which is believed to be named after the French province in the north of the country called 'Maine'. The province is named after the Maine River that runs through it. And the name of the river originates in 'Ce maine ', from the Latin Cenomania , from the name of the Gaulish Cenomani tr...
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When did the Maine Coon come into existence?

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When did the Maine Coon come into existence? The short answer is in the 1860s on the east coast of the US particularly the state of Maine and further north. In the 1860s they were barn cats called 'Maine cats'. They were long-haired cats and moggies. I guess they were semi-domesticated or sometimes fully domesticated.  But the lifestyle of the domestic cat was different then. There was no talk of keeping cats indoors all the time for example and pet food was hardly heard off and the same could be said about cat litter.  The picture below is of a barn cat, not a Maine Coon, but I suspect that this is how the Maine Coon looked in the 1860s before they were selectively bred. Barn cat that looks like a Maine Coon might have looked before selective breeding. Image in public domain. It was all very natural and by today's standards quite slapdash. And of course, veterinary services were much less professional than they are today. And these semi-longhaired cats first came to the co...
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Is the Maine Coon descended from Norwegian Skogkatts brought to North America by Vikings?

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Technically it is possible that the Maine Coon is descended from Norwegian Skogkatts but there is no hard evidence. There's been a lot of discussion on the Internet about whether the Vikings "discovered" North America before Columbus and there is now evidence on my reading of the research that the Vikings had a settlement in North America about a thousand years ago and well before Christopher Columbus arrived in the Americas.  Comparison between Maine Coon and Norwegian Forest cat. Image: MikeB from pictures taken by Helmi Flick (with her permission). RELATED: Comparison between Maine Coon and Norwegian Forest cat . Scientists used new dating techniques to analyse tree rings which provided evidence that the Vikings occupied a site in Newfoundland, Canada in 1021 A.D. It seems that they went as far south as a place called Vinland where grapes were grown but not as far south to what is Maine today. It is unclear exactly where that place is but it is probably the area surrou...
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Are Maine Coons descended from Norwegian Forest Cats?

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Despite the similarity in appearance of the Norwegian Forest Cat and the Maine Coon, there is no hard evidence, to the best of my knowledge, which supports the view that Maine Coon cats are descended from Norwegian Forest Cats. The idea for this suggestion mainly comes from the story of Marie Antoinette (1755-1793) who tried to escape France during the French Revolution. She was imprisoned with King Louis XVI in the summer of 1792. At that time Captain Clough was the captain of a ship called The Sally which sailed between Le Havre and the state of Maine. The ship was docked at Le Havre and therefore it was an ideal means to escape to take the king and Marie Antoinette and her possessions to America. Unfortunately, they failed to engineer her escape and both Marie Antoinette and King Louis XVI were executed by guillotine. Marie Antoinette by Joseph Ducreux. Image in the public domain. However, her possessions and apparently her cats had been loaded onto The Sally in preparation for her ...
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It's stupid to describe the Maine Coon as an invasive species

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Yes, all domestic cats including the Maine Coon cat are invasive species in America. And you may have heard that, in Poland, Polish scientists have declared the domestic cat an invasive species in their country. That is stupid. If you declare the domestic cat invasive species you have to declare the human an invasive species as well because they both originate in places other than Poland and America. And there must come a time when an invasive species no longer becomes an invasive species because they been living in that place for long enough to describe them as part of the ecosystem. You can't call the Maine Coon an invasive species. Photo in public domain. The general consensus is that the Maine Coon cat originates in the medium-longhaired cats that were brought over with the settlers to the American continent from Europe around 400 years ago. Up until about the middle of the 1800s the Maine Coon cat was a random-bred barn cat. They were handsome creatures and somebody decided to...
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Did Marie Antoinette's Norwegian Forest cats (Skogkatts) start the Maine Coon breed?

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There are about a dozen different stories as to the origin of the Maine Coon. Some are fanciful and some are more realistic and plausible. Perhaps the Marie Antoinette Norwegian Forest cat story is somewhere between these extremes. It goes like this. Marie Antoinette. The face of a cat lover! Image: BBC. Marie Antoinette during the French Revolution sent to America her Norwegian Forest cats when she hoped to escape to the New World. RELATED:  Maine Coons are non-native to the USA. Discuss . It is plausible that the French Queen might have owned Norwegian Skogkatts because one of her most devoted admirers at the French court was the Swedish diplomat Count Axel von Fersten. He would have had access to Scandinavian random bred cats (as they were at that time) from Norway and they might have been beautiful cats.  He might have offered her some as an exotic gift. However, there is no evidence to back this up. It is speculation as many of these Maine Coon origin stories are. RELATED...
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Location: Maine, USA
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Name "Maine Coon" needs to be changed because of 'woke' culture

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It is unlikely to happen but there would seem to be a reasonable argument to change the name of this very popular cat breed; the Maine Coon . The problem is this: the second word is a highly derogatory and insulting word describing people of colour. It is a word that you can never use as an insult or almost all other contexts and rightly so. And, in the woke era, where there is a much greater sensitivity towards the inappropriate use of language and attitudes, the word "Coon" has, arguably, become out of place in present society. This argument is supported by TikTok. The administrators of that massive website think that "Maine Coon" is a term or phrase which describes inappropriate human behaviour. It's true. Go to the TikTok website and search for "Maine Coon". Their custom search engine does not find anything. They put up a warning instead to say that the search is inappropriate . See the screenshot above. A sign of the times. RELATED:  Maine Coon...
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Location: Maine, USA
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Why are Maine Coons called that?

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Why is this cat breed called "Maine Coon"? That's the question. There are two possible answers. There are various hypotheses for the origins of this breed. One of them is that a certain Captain Coon, an English sea captain (ostensibly a Chinese bloke), frequented the shores of Maine in his trading seagoing vessel. And, he loved cats!  A Maine Coon bred in The Netherlands. Photo by Dani. He had his little feline army on board. Whenever he went ashore some of his cats managed to follow him where they fraternised with the local strays and domestics. The offspring founded the long-haired cat population of North America and the Maine Coon cat. In that story you have both elements of the cat's name namely, "Maine", a reference to the state of Maine on the east coast of America and "Coon" a reference to Captain Coon who brought the cats to America in the first place. There is another far-fetched possibility in that at one stage some people thought that...
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The extreme Maine Coon face

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This is an example of extreme breeding. This is a Maine Coon but this cat is an extreme and rare example of this breed. This is not the way they look normally. This face is almost like an aggressive robot with the piercing eyes and the huge muzzle.  Or like a lion's head. The head looks enormous and very heavy. It looks unreal. But it also looks very impressive.  And purchasers like impressive-looking domestic cats. But this not the face of a Maine Coon that wins cat show competitions as it does not fit the breed standard as accurately as the more moderate winners (see below).  In fact, the CFA standard is clear in that the cat should have a balanced appearance although this cat was not bred under the CFA breed standard as I understand it (see below).  Click here for more on the kind of MC which wins at shows . Maine Coon selectively breed to have an extreme face. Image in the public domain. And the Maine Coon is meant to be a large cat, the largest domestic cat b...
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Maine Coon Size - this is a huge one!

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  Enormous Maine Coon with a head bigger than the person holding him. Pic: in public domain. Maine Coon size is very important to both breeders of this cat and the public. I sometimes think that the public is more obsessed with Maine Coon size than the breeders are. The bigger the Maine Coon the better. There is a fascination about it and I confess that there is nothing much more impressive than a huge Maine Coon. They've been bred like this through selective breeding but please remember that they weren't always like this. The original Maine Coons were regular farm cats in the state of Maine in 19th-century and before. They were robust, rugged, medium-longhaired moggy cats but impressive nonetheless. Their impressiveness led to breeders deciding to breed them which in turn led to the breed being accepted by the cat associations and then to win cat shows and become perhaps one of the most famous breeds in the world. The breed standard for the Maine Coon as provided by e.g. Cat F...
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Average lifespan of Maine Coon cat

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How long do Maine Coon cats live for? What's the average lifespan? Do they live shorter lives than the average random-bred family cat? These are difficult questions to answer accurately. In fact, I don't think we can answer them accurately because nobody has been counting. Nobody has a database or carried out a full-blown survey and therefore you will read anecdotal evidence i.e. statements by breeders or people who think they know the answer and these answers get repeated on the Internet. I am not sure that they are accurate. Picture of a Maine Coon who looks like a middle-aged man. Photo: Pinterest. My research indicates that people believe that Maine Coon cats live between about 10 and 15 years old. Some may live longer than that and some may live shorter lives. One well-known Maine Coon, Rubble, lived for 31 years and was at one time the oldest domestic cat in the world. But there will always be exceptions and this article is about the mean or the average although these ...
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Comparison of a black smoke Maine Coon at 6 weeks and 6-years-of-age

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This is a cross-post as the image is so damned good. It is amazing because the cat is amazing. To put the same cat at different stages of their life in the same photograph is a nice idea especially with this Maine Coon (MC) who has an amazingly heavy face. It is so mightily masculine to be almost unbelievable. He has a priceless expression on his face too. Very serious compared to the innocence of his face when he was 6 weeks old. He looks a bit coy when 6 weeks old and a slightly grumpy middle-aged man when 6 years old. Comparison of a black smoke Maine Coon at 6-weeks and 6-years-of-age. Image in pubic domain. No doubt he is huge too. You get a clear sense of that in the image. There is a serious and less impressive side to this image. It's the backstory that people don't really want to read about and discuss or in fact do anything about: heart ( HCM ) and joint disease. The bigger and heavier the MCs are the more predisposed to heart disease they are. Here is the posts on...
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Are Maine Coons illegal in some countries, states or territories?

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One Maine Coon website asks if Maine Coons are legal? My initial response was that it is a bizarre question (second thoughts below), but I'll answer it in my way. I say that it is a bizarre question because the Maine Coon is an entirely domestic cat by which I mean NOT a wild cat hybrid and therefore there is no reason whatsoever to declare it illegal in any jurisdiction unless that there is some other fanciful reason to ban the cat (there might be - see below). Are Maine Coons illegal in some countries, states or territories? No, to the best of my knowledge. Image: MikeB I know of no jurisdiction anywhere in the world that bans Maine Coons which makes sense. Conversely a similar sized domestic cat, the F1-F2 Savannah, is illegal in many jurisdictions (states, territories and countries) because it is a wildcat hybrid. The cat has some wild cat DNA which some legislatures consider to be detrimental to human health and welfare and to the conservation of wildlife (if the cat escapes t...
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5 Maine Coon transformations from kitten to adult (video)

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Maine Coon kitten and his adult self. Photo: Robert Silka. This is a series of photographs by the very famous Maine Coon photographer: robert_sijka. I think he presents his photographs too dark as there is not enough information in the photographs for my liking but he takes great photographs of great Maine Coon cats. In this series he photographs a kitten and their adult version. Each individual cat is a wonderful example of the Maine Coon breed. I can count five examples. In my experience, these Google Blogger videos only work if you click the centre play button and then, immediately afterwards, the play button bottom-left! It sounds bad but the short video is worth watching.
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Tortoiseshell Maine Coon with split-face

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Maine Coon with "split face". Photo: Screenshot. This is a very impressive Maine Coon. As you can see she is a tortoiseshell and as you probably know almost all tortoiseshell and calico cats are female. There are a few male tortoiseshell cats (and this might be one of them). Their sex is caused by a genetic aberration because the genetics of tortoiseshell cats dictates that they are almost always female. About one in 3000 are male as I recall. Also, it is not that unusual to see this extreme pattern on the face which creates the appearance of a "split-face". This is not what is called a "chimera" but a normal variation of the tortoiseshell pattern. Sometimes you do see what some people call "two-faced" cats with this sort of face due to a sharply defined pattern down the middle of the face. But the genetics behind that is different to this normal tortoiseshell variation. This is a particularly extraordinary looking Maine Coon cat. Not all Maine C...
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Eerie picture of a Maine Coon sitting like a human on a chest of drawers

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This is a slightly scary picture according to those who've seen it. One social media user said it was the devil and "If I walked into a room and saw that, I would assume some shit is about to go down". There is a ghostly stillness and sinister feeling about the image. 'Eerie' is a better description. This attractive cat appears to be completely at ease and comfortable sitting on top of a chest of bedroom drawers. The lighting from below (deliberate?) enhances the eerie effect. It seems possible that this is a photo-edited image but if so, it has been done with great skill. However, I don't think this is Photoshopped. Rethink: to be honest, the more I look at the picture, the more I feel that this is a photo-edited image. It is just too unnatural to be real. Although some domestic cats get themselves into some very strange positions. Maine Coon calmly sitting just like a human on a chest of drawers. Picture source unclear. Image deemed to be in the public d...
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A mightily beautiful orange Maine Coon

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Orange cats seem to feature in films more than other types of domestic cat . Is it because they have good, balanced characters? I am discussing the possibility of a link between coat type and color and character. A big call. A longshot. But possible. I discussed it in another post - click here if it interests you .  So, we love orange cats. They are undoubtedly one of the more popular cat coat types. And that is one reason why this Maine Coon is so damned attractive. What a combination: the size and presence of the Maine Coon, the world's largest domestic cat breed , and the orange tabby coat ( the friendliest cats? ) A mightily beautiful orange Maine Coon. Photo: Pinterest. I think this sort of domestic cat is the most desirable. You would be hard pressed to adopt a better cat but the best ones to adopt are the unadoptable, elderly, black rescue cats languishing in a shelter somewhere . A bit about the orange cat Cat breeders tend to refer to orange as red. The general public r...
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Today's Maine Coons are much larger and longer than the original

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There was a time, during the early years when the Maine Coon's popularity was in decline that the cat fanciers struggled with writing what they believed to be the correct breed standard. There was competition between what Richard H Gebhardt describes as a "progressive standard" or one which was designed to "describe and preserve an existing cat" i.e. fix the appearance. At this time this cat breed was much more a standard looking cat which is probably why it failed to catch the imagination of the cat loving public of America. Maine Coon. Photo in public domain. A progressive standard is one which allows breeders to constantly "refine" the appearance as they might describe it. But this can lead to extreme breeding and extreme appearances such as is evident in the Persian and Siamese. There was a time, then, went Richard H Gebhardt says that cat fanciers asked, "is the Maine Coon cat simply the long-haired variety of the domestic, or American, sh...
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