I’ve got six cats in my household, four of which are polydactyl. It’s an interesting coincidence that all the polydactyls came from Port Richie, Florida via The Runaways Animal Rescue over a span of two years. The only time before this that I’d ever seen any polydactyl cats was when my wife and I visited Key West near the Hemingway House.

The cat with the mostest toes is little Danï. She is rather rare in that she’s got two extra toes on each fore paw and one extra on each hind paw.

As you can see when Danï decides to sprawl out in her sleep, she has some rather big fore paws, with two extra toes on each. So far all those extra toes on all my cats doesn’t seem to bother them at all. They run and play just fine, and unfortunately for the Florida lizards that make it into the screened in patio, they’re quite adept at capturing said lizards.

Nicholas, by way of comparison, has only one extra toe on each fore paw and normal (for a cat) hind paws. Nicholas has his wee head cradled in his fore paws as he sleeps, while he has his hind paws sticking out for me to photograph. The other two polydactyl cats are like Nicholas in how they express polydactylism.

I’ve wondered how the polydactyly trait is prevalent in Pasco County (which is north of Hillsborough and Tampa). I imagine that some cats came slowly north from Key West as “passengers” on boats. It’s interesting that two Gingers and two Dilute Torties are polydactyl, one male (Ginger) and three female (Ginger and Dilute Tortie). It’s an interesting mystery. Fortunately all of my cats are fixed, so there won’t be any more from them. All my cats are either rescues are the offspring of rescues.