Andrea James

Obligatory pet picture filler entry #1

I am busy working on mapping out our next project, so I thought I’d share a picture of one of my cats instead of writing a proper entry.

From 2008 miscellany

She is a Tonkinese mix, but what’s interesting is that she seems to have a bit of domestication-induced partial albinism, as you can see on her back toes. I remember reading about these two rodent populations in Russia that were artificially selected by scientists for aggressiveness and gentleness respectively since the 1950s, and the super-gentle population began to get a lot of white tufts and partial albinism. Well, this cat is the most gentle cat ever, and I think a little off mentally (even for a cat), which often makes me wonder about these kinds of genetic predispositions.

Did you know Siamese and Tonkinese cats are pure white as kittens and then get their dark markings? I’ll look for some kitten photos soon. Anyway, back to work!