Sokoke Cats

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Sokoke Cats - History

Picture source:
Animals Club

Sokoke cats (or African Shorthair) originated from the Sokoke Arabuke forest in Kenia and became known in Europe in the 20th century. In 1978 a Kenyan farmer found a litter of kittens in a coconut plantation. They were very special with a "blotched tabby" pattern and "foreign" body type. Like many African species, these cats are virtually extinct in the wild.

The first Sokoke cats were imported to Denmark in the 1980's. Records of them and their offspring have been kept very carefully. Sokoke cats were accepted by FIFe only in 1993. This breed preserves unique genes that are unknown among the traditional cat breeds. They remain a real feline mystery, because they could belong to an unknown genus or may be a mixture of an African wild cat and a European domestic cat. Some scientists consider the Sokoke cat to be the missing link to the emergence of the classic tabby pattern in the majority of all domesticated cats.

The Kenyan tribes differentiate three wild genera of these cats and several domesticated ones. In ancient times these cats were part of the diet of the Giriama tribe and were eaten in preference to the domestic stock. The Giriama name for Sokoke cats is "Katzonzo," which means: "look like tree bark."

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