The History of the Sphynx: From Natural Mutation to Modern Breed

Despite its name, the modern Sphynx does not originate from Ancient Egypt.

Hairless cats have appeared spontaneously in different parts of the world throughout recorded feline history. Some of these populations disappeared without becoming established breeds, and they should not automatically be regarded as ancestors of the modern Sphynx.

Sarah Hartwell, author of the extensive Messybeast archive on feline breeds, mutations and genetics, has also written about the persistent myth of the so-called “Egyptian Hairless Cat”. She distinguishes these historical and fictional accounts from the modern Canadian Sphynx, whose documented development began in North America during the twentieth century.

GCCF records earlier examples of naturally hairless cats, including the so-called Mexican Hairless cats Nellie and Dick in New Mexico in 1902, as well as experimental breeding of hairless cats by the French geneticist Professor Étienne Letard. Neither developed into the pedigree breed we recognise today.

The Canadian beginnings

The documented history of the modern Sphynx begins in Ontario, Canada, in 1966.

A black-and-white domestic shorthair named Elizabeth, owned by Mrs Micalwaith, gave birth to a naturally hairless male kitten named Prune. Elizabeth and Prune were subsequently acquired by Riyadh Bawa, who had studied genetics at the University of Toronto, and his mother, an experienced Siamese breeder. Working with another couple, the Tenhoves, they began attempting to establish the hairless trait through selective breeding.

Prune was bred back to his mother, producing both coated and hairless offspring. These early matings helped establish that the hairless phenotype behaved as a recessive trait.

The programme continued for several years, but the population was extremely small. GCCF records that problems associated with the limited gene pool ultimately contributed to the programme ending, and the original Prune line is believed to have died out during the early 1970s.

This is an important part of Sphynx history because the modern breed is sometimes described as though every Sphynx alive today descends directly from Prune. The documented history is more complicated.

New hairless cats appear

Further naturally hairless cats appeared independently during the 1970s.

In Wadena, Minnesota, the ordinary barn cats belonging to Milt and Ethelyn Pearson produced two hairless females: Epidermis and Dermis. GCCF dates this foundation pair to 1975 and records that they proved genetically compatible with the Canadian hairless lines.

A separate development occurred in Toronto.

In 1978, Siamese breeder Shirley Smith encountered a black-and-white hairless male named Bambi. His mother later produced two further hairless kittens in separate litters, Punkie and Paloma.

There is an important historical uncertainty here.

The cats from the original Prune programme had already been neutered by this point, so the two Canadian populations could never be test-mated to demonstrate directly that exactly the same mutation was responsible. GCCF itself acknowledges this and states only that their occurrence in the same geographical area makes a common genetic basis appear likely.

Modern Sphynx therefore developed not from one uninterrupted family line, but from several naturally occurring hairless cats incorporated into breeding programmes in North America and Europe.

Punkie, Paloma and the European programme

Punkie and Paloma were sent to Dr Hugo Hernandez in the Netherlands, where they became important to the emerging European breeding programme.

Hernandez needed suitable mates and bred Punkie to a white Devon Rex male, Curare van Jetrophin.

At the time, the underlying molecular genetics were unknown. Hernandez reportedly expected normally coated offspring carrying the Sphynx mutation. Instead, hairless kittens were produced.

This suggested something unusual about the relationship between the two coat mutations — something that would only be properly explained decades later.

The Devon Rex connection

The Devon Rex became an important historical outcross during the early development of the Sphynx in both Europe and North America.

Breeders were attempting to enlarge a very restricted gene pool, and Devon Rex appeared to offer a practical means of doing so.

However, the Sphynx and Devon Rex coat mutations turned out not to be independent genes.

In 2010, Gandolfi and colleagues identified different mutations in KRT71 associated with the Sphynx and Devon Rex phenotypes. Their study proposed the allelic relationship:

KRT71+ > KRT71hr > KRT71re

In other words, the normal-coat allele is dominant to the Sphynx hairless allele, while the Sphynx allele is dominant to the Devon Rex allele.

Sarah Hartwell describes the same relationship in her Messybeast Genes and Alleles Summary, explaining that molecular analysis demonstrated that the Canadian Sphynx and Devon Rex mutations are different variants of the same gene rather than mutations at completely separate loci.

This also explains why some Sphynx can carry the Devon Rex variant while still appearing hairless.

The 2010 genetic study found Sphynx cats that were compound heterozygotes, carrying one Sphynx-associated KRT71 variant and one Devon Rex-associated variant while retaining the hairless phenotype.

Why Sphynx × Devon Rex is no longer permitted by GCCF

The historical importance of the Devon Rex does not mean that Sphynx × Devon Rex remains an acceptable breeding practice.

The GCCF Sphynx Registration Policy explicitly states that crosses to Devon Rex which were previously accepted for the production of foundation stock are no longer acceptable. Existing historical Devon Rex ancestry was allowed to remain within established pedigrees, but new Devon Rex outcrosses were discontinued.

There were several reasons.

First, continued use of Devon Rex did not provide as much new genetic diversity as originally hoped. The GCCF breeding policy states that an early over-reliance on Devon Rex failed to provide sufficient diversity, leading breeders to move toward other outcrosses.

Second, the Devon Rex-associated KRT71 allele could remain hidden within Sphynx lines.

If two Sphynx carrying the Devon Rex allele are bred together, GCCF notes that there is a 25% probability that an offspring could inherit two Devon Rex alleles and no Sphynx allele. GCCF therefore regards the Devon Rex allele as undesirable within the modern Sphynx gene pool and recommends DNA testing where historic Devon ancestry may be relevant.

There were also differences in breed type. GCCF notes that Devon Rex and Sphynx differ substantially in head shape, muzzle, ears and eye shape, and advises breeders to select away from Devon Rex-like characteristics where they appear in Sphynx descended from historic outcrosses.

The GCCF breeding policy additionally attributes increased blood type B frequency, inherited myopathy and HCM-related concerns within some historic Sphynx lines to the use of Devon Rex.

That last historical claim needs some qualification.

It is appropriate to report it as GCCF's documented explanation in its breeding policy, but it should not be expanded into the broader statement that Devon Rex “caused HCM in the Sphynx”. HCM is genetically complex, and the historical movement of HCM susceptibility between individual lines cannot be reconstructed so simply from the evidence currently available.

The stronger, directly demonstrated genetic connection between the breeds is the KRT71 relationship, which has been established molecularly.

GCCF policy is equally clear in the opposite direction: cats with Sphynx ancestry should not be introduced into Devon Rex breeding programmes. Its Devon Rex policy states that offspring of Sphynx × Devon Rex matings cannot be used as Devon Rex breeding stock.

The history of this outcross therefore illustrates something important about pedigree breeding: an outcross that helped establish a young breed can later become unnecessary or undesirable as the population develops and genetic knowledge improves.

Development of the European lines

The European breeding programme produced cats that became influential in later Sphynx pedigrees.

However, this is also where the historical record becomes less reliable.

Later breeder histories give names such as Q. Ra, Q. Ramses, Hathor de Calecat, Hanna/Hannie Nathans and Tonia Vink and attempt to reconstruct the movement of individual cats between European programmes.

Some of those accounts may well be accurate, but many are retrospective breeder histories rather than contemporary registry records. Spellings of names and even some ownership details differ between sources.

For this reason, we do not present every step of those reconstructed pedigrees as established historical fact unless it can be supported by contemporary records.

The first Sphynx in the United Kingdom

The British history is better documented.

The Sphynx Cat Club records that in 1988, a four-year-old female named Hathor de Calecat, known as Tulip, became the first Sphynx to enter the United Kingdom from Holland.

Tulip was jointly owned by Jan Plumb and Angela Rushbrook.

This matters because some later accounts simplify the story by crediting Jan Plumb alone with introducing the Sphynx to Britain. The surviving UK club history specifically records both women as Tulip's owners.

Tulip was subsequently exhibited at three GCCF shows, where she introduced many British cat enthusiasts to the breed for the first time. The Sphynx Cat Club records that she lived to more than fifteen years of age.

There is still uncertainty around one detail.

The Sphynx Cat Club lists Tulip's breeder as “Hattie Nathon”, while some later breeder histories use similar but different names, including Hannie or Hanna Nathans, often associated with the Calecat prefix.

Those names may refer to the same person and may simply have become altered through transcription over the years, but without an original pedigree or contemporary registry document we cannot confirm that conclusively.

For that reason, we retain the spelling used by the Sphynx Cat Club when referring specifically to its account, rather than silently correcting it to match later secondary sources.

From natural mutation to established breed

The Sphynx was therefore not created by one breeder or descended from one single hairless cat.

Its history involved a number of naturally occurring hairless kittens, followed by breeding programmes in Canada, the United States and Europe and the deliberate use of outcrosses to build a viable population.

Some of the decisions made during the breed's early development — particularly the extensive use of Devon Rex — would not be repeated under modern breeding policies. At the time, however, breeders were working without DNA tests and without the molecular knowledge available today.

Modern genetics has subsequently explained some of what they observed in their breeding programmes.

The Sphynx-associated and Devon Rex-associated coat variants are now known to involve the same gene, KRT71, while later population studies have also shown that the genetic picture is not necessarily complete: some phenotypically hairless Sphynx have been identified without the commonly tested Sphynx KRT71 variant, suggesting that additional genetic factors may exist.

That is another reason to be cautious with simplified statements about the breed's genetic history.

The history of the Sphynx is still being clarified as historical records are revisited and genetic knowledge develops.

Where reliable evidence exists, we use it. Where historical accounts conflict or cannot be independently verified, we believe it is more accurate to acknowledge that uncertainty than to repeat a convenient version of the story as fact.

Sources and further reading

Governing Council of the Cat Fancy (GCCF) — Sphynx: Origins and History. GCCF records the Prune line, Shirley Smith's cats, Punkie and Paloma, Hugo Hernandez, Devon Rex outcrossing and Tulip's arrival in the UK. The Governing Council of the Cat Fancy

GCCF Sphynx Breed Advisory Committee — Recommended Breeding Policy for the Sphynx Cat. Particularly useful for the historical gene pool, Devon Rex outcrossing, the KRT71 relationship and GCCF's reasons for moving away from Devon Rex. The Governing Council of the Cat Fancy

GCCF Sphynx Registration Policy — states explicitly that previously acceptable Devon Rex foundation crosses are no longer acceptable as new Sphynx outcrosses. The Governing Council of the Cat Fancy

Gandolfi B, Outerbridge CA, Beresford LG, et al. (2010). The naked truth: Sphynx and Devon Rex cat breed mutations in KRT71. Mammalian Genome 21:509–515. This is the primary scientific source for the molecular relationship between the Sphynx and Devon Rex KRT71 variants. PubMed Central (PMC)

Sarah Hartwell — Messybeast. Genes and Alleles Summary. Hartwell's archive provides a useful independent secondary reference on the relationship between the Canadian Sphynx and Devon Rex coat mutations and the KRT71 allelic series. Messy Beast

Sarah Hartwell — Messybeast. The Mythical Egyptian Hairless Cat. Useful background on the persistent but historically unsupported association between the modern Sphynx and an alleged ancient “Egyptian Hairless” breed. Messy Beast

The Sphynx Cat Club, UK — History & Origins. Principal UK breed-club source for Tulip, her 1988 arrival from Holland and her joint ownership by Jan Plumb and Angela Rushbrook. Sphynx Cat Club