Sphynx

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The Sphynx traces to a spontaneous mutation in 1966, when a domestic cat in Toronto gave birth to a hairless kitten. Breeders identified the trait as recessive and spent more than 30 years developing the breed by outcrossing to normal-coated cats, including Devon Rex and American Shorthair lines, and most modern Sphynx descend from two kittens found in Minnesota in 1975 and three found in Toronto in 1978. That repeated outcrossing left the breed genetically healthier than its rarity suggests, with observed heterozygosity of 0.58 against a purebred average of 0.51. The consequences of hairlessness are real and permanent: the oil glands work normally but there is no coat to absorb the secretions, so the skin stays greasy and needs routine bathing, and the cats sunburn easily, carry high rates of Malassezia yeast, and regulate body temperature poorly. The breed also carries a striking burden of hypertrophic cardiomyopathy, and in UK primary-care life tables the Sphynx had the shortest life expectancy of any breed reported, 6.8 years from birth against 11.7 years for cats overall. Since 1 January 2026 it has been prohibited to keep a hairless cat in the Netherlands, which in practice ends acquisition too, though trade and import were considered and deliberately left out of the decree as redundant. Breeding them had already been unlawful there since 2014. A cat that was already being kept before that date may be kept for the rest of its life, and may still change hands, provided the keeper can produce written proof of the date its microchip was placed or registered.

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