100 Cats Who Changed Civilization
Copyright © 2007 by Quirk Productions, Inc.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form without written permission from the publisher.
Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Number: 2006937818
eISBN: 978-1-59474-588-1
Designed by Bryn Ashburn
Illustrations by Gina Triplett
e-book production management by Melissa
Quirk Books
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v3.1
To Ted.
He might not have been
the greatest cat in the world,
but he was the greatest
in mine.
CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION
“Cats are a mysterious kind of folk. There is more passing in their minds than we are aware of.”
—Sir Walter Scott
Cats have communed with mankind since before the dawn of civilization. Yet discovering the handful who helped shape our history was no easy task. The typical feline is blithely uninterested in the comings and goings of the human race. It’s part—perhaps the most important part—of their character. The people around them can do as they like, so long as there is food in the food dish, clean litter in the litter box, and a sunny window ledge from which to watch the world go by.
Nevertheless, over the centuries certain individuals of the feline persuasion have seen fit to exert themselves on humanity’s behalf. For the most part they do it in their own distinctive way, for their own inscrutable reasons. Blatant grandstanding, such as, say, rescuing a toddler from a burning tenement, just isn’t their style. Those escapades are best left to dogs.
Instead of showing off, many of the cats profiled in the following pages earned their laurels in more subtle ways. These luminaries could be divided into four
broad groups: muses, pioneers, antiheroes, and heroes.
The muses made their marks by willingly giving companionship, inspiration, or even a simple morale boost to needy geniuses.
Cattarina
, the feline associate of Edgar Allan Poe, served as a template for one of the greatest horror stories ever written. And it was a tomcat named
Macek
who inspired scientist Nicola Tesla to begin his world-changing study of electricity.
Some of the “pioneers” earned spots in the history books without even knowing it. A Canadian cat named
Snowball
was quite unaware that a few strands of her hair not only caught a killer, but revolutionized criminal forensics as well. Likewise, one can rest assured that a feline named
F. D. C. Willard
never knew he coauthored a research paper on low-energy physics. Furthermore, a black cat called
Colby
hasn’t the slightest inkling that he was awarded an executive MBA.
Of course, not all cats who changed history did so for the better. Thankfully, this small rogue’s gallery of antiheroes is likewise ignorant of its misdeeds. A lighthouse keeper’s pet named
Tibbles
never knew that he was the only creature to single-handedly wipe out an entire species. And a kitten named
Ahmedabad
was spared all knowledge of the serious diplomatic row he triggered between Pakistan and the United States.
Finally, this book would be remiss were it not to enumerate the sagas of classic hero cats—felines who during a crisis displayed such human-centric characteristics
as bravery, resourcefulness, and resolve. To this elite group belongs
Mourka
, who assisted Russian forces during the bloody battle for Stalingrad;
Trixy
, who stood by her human associate during his imprisonment in the infamous Tower of London; and
Tommy
, who used a phone to call the police when his wheelchair-bound owner was incapacitated.
All these felines, plus the dozens of others enshrined in these pages, changed history in small—and sometimes not-so-small—ways. Their indifference, indeed their
obliviousness
to their achievements, could serve as an example for vain humans, many of whom make a much bigger fuss over much more modest accomplishments.
TIBBLES
THE CAT WHO WIPED OUT
AN ENTIRE SPECIES
Felines are famous for their skill at eradicating mice, rats, and birds. But no cat in the history of civilization can match the unbridled bloodlust displayed by a humble lighthouse keeper’s pet named Tibbles. He’s become famous—or rather, infamous—in the annals of science as the only animal to have wiped out an entire species by itself.
The unlucky species in question was the Stephens Island wren. By all accounts, it was as unusual as it was harmless. Because there were originally no mice in the corner of the world where it evolved, the wren adapted to fill that ecological niche. It lost the ability to fly, shrank to roughly the size of a rodent, and spent its days running at top speed through the underbrush. But though it couldn’t fly, the wren retained the ability to sing.
At one time this fragile, musical, mouselike bird called all of New Zealand home. But when South Pacific islanders arrived, they brought stowaway rats on their ships—rats that quickly invaded the local ecosystem. The wrens, completely helpless against the sudden onslaught of such a powerful and ruthless predator, were quickly exterminated. Their last rat-free redoubt was Stephens Island, a
roughly one-square-mile spit of rock off New Zealand’s northern coast.
That’s how matters stood until 1894, when a lighthouse was established there. Its keeper, David Lyall, brought along his cat, Tibbles, for company. One can only imagine the feline’s delight at finding the island overrun with bite-sized, flightless birds. Not surprisingly, Tibbles got straight to work, attacking the little creatures wherever he found them.
Tibbles alerted his owner to his new hobby by hauling more than a dozen of his victims back to the lighthouse, all of them dead or nearly so. Lyall kept several, which because of their strangeness found their way into the hands of ornithologists. In 1895 the little animal was unveiled to the scientific world and given the Latin name
Xenicus lyalli
. Then, almost in the same breath, it was declared extinct.
The ecological destruction inaugurated by a pack of rats was, ironically, completed by a lone cat. It never occurred to the lighthouse keeper, or anyone else, that given the unique (and uniquely fragile) nature of the Stephens Island fauna, it might have been a good idea to make Tibbles an
indoor
cat.
