Polydactyl | HappyStar Cattery

Info about polydactyly

While the Maine Coon

is one of the

the most popular breeds,

the polydactyl Maine Coon perhaps not equally known to all cat lovers in Norway.

They are pedigreed

Maine Coon's with extra

toes on their paws.

A ''normal'' cat has five toes

on the front paws and

four toes on the back paw, but a polydactyl cat can have

up to eight toes on each paw.

After having one

polydactyl girl in the house in

over 1 year we have noticed

certain differences between

poly and non poly cats.

Milli is a master at climbing,

jumps twice as far

like the other non poly cats

and also have an extreme

good balance.

There are two types of polypods; mittenpaws

and pattypaws.

Mittenpaws has the obvious thumb on the inside of the front paw.

The thumb can have 1, 2 or 3 toes.

See picture -->

This is pattypaws, that is, they have

full paw pad with extra toes.

See picture -->

If you want to learn more about polydactyly, we highly recommend visiting the site of

Monica A. Sundset (Alterskjær Maine Coon)

She has a really nice site that is educational and useful.

Another site with lots of good info is MCPolydactyl highly recommended.

Feel free to become a member of Polydactyle Maine Coon in Norway too ;)