Meet the Cornish Rex

We Cornish Rex are a very new breed. The first Cornish Rex was born in Cornwall, England in 1950. A tortoiseshell British Shorthair named Serena, who was owned by a human named Nina Ennismore, gave birth to a litter of five kittens, but one of them was very different. A male kitten in the litter named Kallibunker was born with tight curls all over his body. As Kallibunker grew, it became clear that he was also physically different from his siblings – he had big ears, a slender body, long legs, and a different shaped head.

Nina Ennismore knew that she had something very special in Kallibunker and she consulted a geneticist who believed that he was the result of a natural mutation. The geneticist suggested that she breed Kallibunker back to his mother Serena. This litter had two curly kittens, and the Cornish Rex breed was born! We were named Cornish Rex after the region we came from and the Rex rabbit, which the humans thought had fur similar to ours. Interestingly, there was another happy accident wavy coated cat breed that began in nearby Devon – the Devon Rex – but it was discovered that the Devon Rex mutation was different from the Cornish Rex mutation.

Since there were so few Cornish Rex cats, breeders started to cross them with Burmese, Siamese, Russian Blue, and British Shorthair cats to increase the gene pool. Two Cornish Rex cats came to the United States in 1957 and American breeders began to cross them with Havana Browns and American Shorthairs, which increased the gene pool even more. Because my early ancestors were crossbred with so many different kinds of cats, our coats (though always curly) come in a rainbow of color and pattern combinations! In 1964, the Cat Fanciers’ Association officially recognized our breed and we have been popular in and out of the show ring ever since!