This picture of a cat having a whitewater adventure is doing the rounds. Amusing, but pretty obviously photoshopped. (I don't think many cats would willingly get into a raft.) Here's the original from which the cat was taken:
The photoshopping is so obvious that it's not even funny. The picture on the left is the blatant fake. The one with the cat in the raft is the original. It is a Tazmanian Calico Lake Cat and it is hunting from the raft. They will belly-flop on the water to stun a fish and grab it in their claws to pull it to shore. They are excellent swimmers and have been known to even wrestle crocs and gators in water and win. I am really surprized that someone was able to domesticate one of these wild animals. Besides, they are on the endagered species list and impossible to import legally. I wonder if they are being bred domestically. That would be interesting to obtain one.
Posted by Lounge Lizard on Wed Jul 19, 2006 at 09:53 AM
Ah Yes! You're right, it is The Tazmanian Calico Lake Cat. They are also known to hunt the elusive Snub-Nosed Leaping Lizard native to the southern region of Texas.
Posted by Grain on Wed Jul 19, 2006 at 10:11 AM
My granddaddy had a Tazmanian Calico Lake Cat (TazCal for short) for years, but lost it while on vaction in South America. On a visit to Angel Falls, Grandpa was just taking an evelope full of catnip from his pocket to distract TazCal from going after the leaping arapaimas, when a sharp gust of wind blew the envelope out of Grandpa's hand and over the cataract. TazCal went flying after the catnip, and was never seen again.
That was back in the '30s. It's good to see the breed is still around.
Posted by Big Gary on Wed Jul 19, 2006 at 10:42 AM
whoa, Big Gary... that's weird...The Llama Brothers, the twin South American movie moguls for whom I've done Llama-wrangling contract work for in the past, had a stuffed TazCal in their office waiting room. It looked pretty old. I wonder if it's the same TazCal to which you refer. It was a large one, with glass eyes and sawdust up it's ass. Does that sound like your TC kitty? Small world, huh
Posted by Hairy Houdini on Wed Jul 19, 2006 at 11:00 AM
thats a quite a cat... maybe you might wana have that cat go bungie jumping... since the cat is adventurouse and everything. yea you can diffenetly tell that picture was fake.
Posted by RisingSunOfNihon on Wed Jul 19, 2006 at 01:04 PM
Sorry, but that is not a Tazmanian Calico Lake Cat. The true Tazmanian Calico Lake Cat has a shorter, stubby tail and short whiskers, apparently because long whiskers create too much drag during the TCLC's characteristic hunting dive, and is somewhat smaller than the animal shown. What you have here is probably a hybrid, part TCLC and part domestic shorthair; due to the TCLC's willingness to interbreed with the common house cat, very few pure TCLCs remain. The hybrids have greater size and vigor than the purebreds and have become a serious pest in the Great Lakes region, where a number of TCLCs, imported for use in experimental lamprey control, escaped in 1999 and began breeding with the local feral cat population. Large parts of Lake Michigan cannot be fished due to the danger of cat attack.
Posted by Ledasmom on Wed Jul 19, 2006 at 01:26 PM
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This picture of a cat having a whitewater adventure is doing the rounds. Amusing, but pretty obviously photoshopped. (I don't think many cats would willingly get into a raft.) Here's the original from which the cat was taken:
Comments
That was back in the '30s. It's good to see the breed is still around.