Does this cat really have a cat-shaped mark on its back?

Several pictures of a cat with a cat-shaped mark on its back have circulated online for a couple of years.


There's also a version of the image with arabic writing on it, that's currently doing the rounds on facebook.


I don't know the cat's name, but the cat has a Japanese owner who keeps a blog, ameblo.jp/usousopp, devoted to posting pictures of it. There are hundreds of pictures of the cat up there. And here's the strange thing. In the two pictures of the cat that are circulating, the marking clearly resembles a cat. But in the pictures of the cat on the ameblo.jp blog, the marking looks slightly different. The pointy ears on the marking are gone, so the marking no longer looks as much like a cat. Though when viewed upside down, it resembles a question mark.

 


Perhaps the pointy-ear effect in the two photos was caused by the way the cat's skin folded. Or perhaps someone photoshopped the ears in. I'm not sure, though I'm leaning towards photoshop. I searched the site to see if I could find the pointy-ear-marking photos. (The site has an image browser feature which made searching pretty easy.) I wanted to see if the originals differed from the versions in circulation. But I couldn't find them on the site.

Animals Photos

Posted on Fri May 04, 2012


Comments

I think you could get that effect just by taking a finger and pushing the cat's fur forward at the right places.
Posted by George P Burdell  on  Fri May 04, 2012  at  05:25 PM
I think it's an issue of the position of the shoulder blades being pushed out when the cat is laying down.
Posted by Vincent  on  Fri May 04, 2012  at  05:38 PM
The thing is, unless a cat is severely dehydrated, it's skin shouldn't be so loose that it would fold like that. Plus, no matter how the skin folded, the round marking wouldn't develop those sharp points.
Posted by The Curator  in  San Diego  on  Sat May 05, 2012  at  07:21 AM
Completely agree with George P Burdell. You can alter patterns on a cat by "combing" bits of fur into place, or lifting two fur "prongs" like in this case. Particularly on partly whites.
Posted by Markus  on  Sat May 05, 2012  at  07:46 AM
Commenting is not available in this channel entry.