A number of fancy cat breeds began with a mutation—often confined to one individual in a litter—that had an obvious effect on the phenotype. The Scottish Fold, for example, was founded by a barn cat from Perthshire, Scotland, with peculiarly forward-bending ears. Someone decided it would be a good thing to perpetuate this mutation. The Manx, from the Isle of Man, has a skeletal mutation that causes the tailless condition, among its other effects. In this it somewhat resembles the Japanese Bobtail, a natural breed with a quite different mutation. Munchkin cats have a mutation that causes limb shortening analogous to that of the dachshund.

Without fancy cats, we’d have no memes. Tip your hat to the genius of evolution