Massachusetts State Cat

Tabby Cat

(Felis catus)

Adopted in 1988

The Tabby Cat, Felis familiaris, was made the official state cat in 1988, in response to the wishes of the schoolchildren of Massachusetts.

Description of the Massachusetts State Cat

The word TABBY, is thought to be derived from the word ATABI, which is a type of silk manufactured in the Attabiah region of Baghdad. They exported quantities of this fabric to England, where the striped pattern was compared to the striping on the ‘tiger' cat. This type of cat then became known as the TABBI, which was later modified to TABBY.

Tabby cats are often mistakenly thought of as being a particular breed of cat, but it is the coat pattern that is known as "tabby", and this pattern can occur in all breeds of domestic cat. All breeds of domestic cat carry the tabby gene.

Hierarchy of the Tabby Cat

Kingdom	Animalia -- animals
Phylum	Chordata -- chordates
Subphylum	Vertebrata -- vertebrates
Class	Mammalia
Order	Carnivora
Family	Felidae
Genus	Felis
Species	Felis catus

State Animals and Mammals

Mammals are one group of animals. Bears, monkeys and dolphins are mammals. So are humans. But what makes a mammal a mammal?

an·i·mal (ān'ə-məl)
n.

1. A multicellular organism of the kingdom Animalia, differing from plants in certain typical characteristics such as capacity for locomotion, nonphotosynthetic metabolism, pronounced response to stimuli, restricted growth, and fixed bodily structure.
2. An animal organism other than a human, especially a mammal.
mam·mal (mām'əl)
n.

Any of various warm-blooded vertebrate animals of the class Mammalia, including humans, characterized by a covering of hair on the skin and, in the female, milk-producing mammary glands for nourishing the young.