Appearance
The Burmese cat, often known simply as the Burmese, belongs to a group of oriental cat breeds and comes from Myanmar, previously known as Burma. The Burmese should not be confused with the Birman, also originally from Burma but with longer hair and French roots.
Two distinct breeding standards
The Burmese is one of the few cat breeds with two distinct breeding standards. This is thanks to the great difference between the European Burmese, originally the British Burmese, and the American Burmese. These are also known as “traditional” and “contemporary” respectively. American Burmese cats are much stronger and stockier, with a broad chest and head as well as a shorter muzzle. European Burmese cats are generally leaner and more athletic in build and are primarily popular in Europe, perhaps unsurprisingly.
Graceful yet muscular
Burmese cats are usually a small to medium breed, with females weighing up to 4kg and males at around 6kg. These graceful yet muscular creatures are similar to the classic Siamese, although not quite as slimly built as the modern version of the breed. The Burmese is somewhat more compact than its long-legged Siamese relation. It has a wide chest and straight back that is supported by delicate legs and oval-shaped paws. Its face is captivating, thanks to large, wide eyes and ears. These beguiling ears sit either side of a wedge-shaped head featuring a wide, rounded forehead. The large, slightly almond-shaped eyes glow a brilliant amber.
A Burmese cat’s coat is silky and gleaming. It is extremely light and there is just a small amount of undercoat lying close to the skin. This is a characteristic inherited from its ancestors in the warm Southeast Asian climate.
Colour varieties
The fur is generally a solid colour without any real pattern, although younger Burmese cats may show light tabby colouring. It is not unusual for a Burmese to have a slightly darker face, something that is fairly sought after. Ten different colour varieties are officially recognised: blue, chocolate, brown and red, as well as others known as the “dilute division”, which include lilac, cream and a range of two-tone variations such as chocolate-tortoiseshell, blue-tortoiseshell, brown-tortoiseshell and lilac-tortoiseshell.
- Brown: Burmese cats with warm, dark-brown colouring are known by a number of names, including seal, brown and sable. The nose and paw pads are darkly coloured.
- Chocolate: this chocolate-brown is different from the standard brown or seal colourings. The paw pads are either cinnamon or chocolate brown in colour.
- Blue: this variety of the Burmese is particularly attractive, in a blue-grey colour with metallic sheen and with matching nose and paw pads.
- Lilac: a dilution from the traditional brown into a soft dove-grey with slight pink sheen, reaching the nose and paw pads in a beautiful lavender colour.
- Red: red Burmese cats have warm, orange-red fur and pink nose and paw pads.
- Cream: another dilution, this time from red, the cream Burmese are a light beige colour, with the same pink nose and paw pads as the red Burmese.
Tortoiseshell varieties
The description of tortoiseshell, often abbreviated to “Tortie”, describes a three-coloured cat with distinctive markings. Due to the genetic characteristics of this colouring, all tortoiseshell three-coloured cats are female. The Burmese can be found in a range of tortoiseshell varieties:
- Brown-tortoiseshell: these have a red base colour with warm, dark brown flecks. The nose and paw pads can be a number of colours, including brown or pink, and often feature pink flecks.
- Chocolate-tortoiseshell: a chocolate-brown base with beautiful beige flecks. The nose and paw pads can be chocolate-brown or pink and can have pink flecks on a brown base.
- Lilac-tortoiseshell: the dove-grey base colour is flecked with apricot and dark-beige flecks, with pink paw pads and muzzle.
- Blue-tortoiseshell: a blue base with stunning beige flecks.
Depending on where the Burmese cats are being bred, there are a number of other colour varieties available. For example, in New Zealand the Burmese often comes in cinnamon, fawn, caramel or apricot, as well as silver varieties. In addition, Burmese cats with tabby colouring are not unheard of.
Temperament
Burmese cats are intelligent, inquisitive and lively, as with most oriental cat breeds. These trusting cats love to get involved wholeheartedly with people, enjoying playing and entertaining younger family members. The Burmese remains agile and attentive even in older age and loves nothing better than having a good conversation! However, even being part of a large human family cannot replace a fellow feline companion. Burmese cats dislike being alone, which means they may not make the ideal pet for those hoping for just a single-cat household.
These cats are enthusiastic about moving around and keeping active, enjoying being kept both physically and mentally busy. Being kept indoors all day is not the ideal living situation for a Burmese cat. These little pocket rockets much prefer to have a secure garden or even an enclosed cat balcony at their disposal, offering plenty of opportunities to climb, play and watch over their kingdom. Should you decide to add another cat to your household, you need to bear in mind that you will be looking at twice the fun!
History
The possible breeding theory of the Burmese cat from modern-day Myanmar, formerly known as Burma, has not been entirely clarified. It is believed that the cats were kept by monks as one of 16 sacred cat breeds in their temples. Certainly, in Asia they are still known by their Thai name, “Maeo Thong Daeng”.
The first traces of the Burmese cat were discovered in 1871, at the first British cat show. At this event, a variation of the Siamesecat known as the “Chocolate Siamese” appeared, closely resembling the popular modern-day American Burmese cat. However, it has not been substantiated that these cats were in fact related to the Burmese.
It all started with “Wong Mau”
What is certain is that a US Navy doctor brought a Burmese cat from the then-named Burma in the beginning of the 1930s. The cat was similar to a light-brown Siamese and a team of scientists and cat breeders soon worked together to study in detail the genetic characteristics of this cat, known as “Wong Mau”. They confirmed that this cat from the remote land of Burma was not merely a dark variation of the Siamese, but rather belonged to its own separate breed. “Wong Mau” was then bred with “Tai Mau”, a sealpoint Siamese, followed by her son. This was done in order to produce dark brown kittens that became the original parents of the modern Burmese breed.
Breed recognition
In 1936, the Burmese was officially recognised by the Cat Fanciers’ Association (CFA). However, because the breed was so extensively crossed with the Siamese cat, this status as its own breed was revoked after just a decade. A few cat breeders worked on distinguishing the individual characteristics of the Burmese and setting out clear differences between this breed and the Siamese, meaning that from 1954 onwards the Burmese was once again recognised as its own breed. In 1958, the American United Burmese Cat Fanciers (UBCF) set up its own breed standards, which have not been altered since. The 1950s hailed the arrival of the Burmese in Great Britain and, in 1952, the breed was recognised by the United Kingdom’s Governing Council of the Cat Fancy (GCCF).
The British Burmese was based on the American Burmese, amongst others, but nowadays the breed standards differ greatly. These differences are such that the “traditional” British Burmese is not even recognised in the USA, Australia and New Zealand.
1970 heralded the arrival of the first native litter of Burmese cats born in Germany, and so began the spread of the Burmese breed throughout Europe. To this day, the majority of native Burmese cats in Europe come from the classic British variety, whereas in New Zealand, Australia and the USA, the stronger American type is more common.
The Burmese cat has also been involved in the development of a number of other cat breeds, in particular the Tonkinese and the Burmilla.
source: zooplus.co.uk
Burmese Cattery Berlin 