When Flossie was born, Mariah Carey, Coolio and Pearl Jam ruled the airwaves alongside a band called Deep Blue Something with their hit, “Breakfast At Tiffany’s.”
Robert Deniro and Al Pacino were kings of the box office for their film, Heat, alongside Robin Williams’ Jumanji and Steve Martin’s Father of the Bride Part II. Bill Clinton was still serving his first term as president, and the internet was in its infancy as a network available to the wider public after years of use by the military and academics, with users connecting via cumbersome and painfully slow modems.
Your humble correspondent was just a kid, and Buddy wouldn’t be born for almost another 20 years.
Yet Flossie’s still going and just celebrated her 30th birthday on Dec. 29. The tortoiseshell was officially named the world’s oldest cat in 2022 when she was 26 years old. Flossie, originally a stray living near a hospital, was adopted by her first human, a healthcare worker. When that woman passed away, her sister became Flossie’s caretaker. And in August of 2022, having outlived two of her humans, Flossie was taken in by the UK’s Cats Protection, who carefully screened applicants until settling on Victoria Green, who lived in Orpington, UK.
“I’ve always wanted to give older cats a comfortable life,” Green said when she was chosen as Flossie’s caretaker.
Flossie was deaf and had “limited eyesight,” veterinarians noted when they helped Guiness World Records verify the long-lived feline’s age. But despite that, Flossie remains “affectionate and playful,” Green said.
“I feel like I’m not sharing my home with the oldest cat. I feel like this is her home and I’m encroaching on her space,” Green told Guinness World Records at the time. “She’s a very nice roommate and we get on very well. I don’t feel like I’m living with a senior.”
The oldest cat on record was Creme Puff of Austin, Texas, who was born in August of 1967 and lived until 1995, when Flossie was born.
We wish the birthday girl a happy one and hope she’s got at least a few more birthdays in her.
Pain In The Bud 
Awww, sweet Flossie! I wonder if torties often live longer than most cats? My neighbor’s pretty little tortie, Kiki, lived to be more than 20 years old — how much more, no one knows for sure. (Kiki was mostly an outdoor cat until we moved in and she adopted us, taking to often hanging out and sleeping at our house — she even took to using a litter box. Very smart cat.)
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I’m not sure. The coat pattern is caused by a gene being turned “off” on one X of two, which is why they’re almost all female, but that’s also somehow tied in to reproduction because male tortoiseshells are extremely rare, but when they exist they’re usually sterile.
So I think there’s a lot we don’t know about cat genes, what each of them does, and how a gene that is tied to coat color, coat pattern or some other function can also impact other things.
It’s not outlandish to think there could be a connection to aging. Aging is, after all, just accumulated errors in cell reproduction.
This is why an immunologist friend of the blog explained that turning Fel d1 “off” (the primary allergen in cat saliva) might sound good in theory, but could have unforseen consequences. We know Fel d1 is responsible for the allergen, but we don’t know what its primary function is.
The tl:dr version: It’s certainly possible that tortoiseshell cats could have a mutation related to aging. We are still almost entirely ignorant when it comes to feline genetics.
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Fascinating stuff, that . . . Happy and healthy 2026 to all buddies, big and little!
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Sorry – clicked send rather too quickly – what a fantastic uplifting story to end the year with – Happy Birthday Flossie!
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It’s great to see Flossie is still going strong, and she’s a fellow Londoner.
I had a few stories looking at things in 2025 but they’re not ready and I figure I can still post them at some point.
Happy New Year, John!
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Happy New Year to the Buddies especially and to all the subscribers that I regularly see and read on PiTB, may all our furry overlords continue with their demands and allow us to give them the life of Royalty.
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Does not look a day over 20!! 🤣🤣
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Indeed! She actually does look quite playful in some of the photos.
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That’s a joyful good news story, a great way to end 2025 after all the wretched events we’ve had to put up with this year. Flossie seems to have fared rather better than me over the last 30 years…I remember 1995, he muttered wistfully, a time when I had a full head of hair and none of it was grey, a time when I could watch television for a whole hour without the overwhelming need to snooze. But back then I had no cats in my life, so on balance I’m much better off now!
Well done to Victoria Green for making sure Flossie’s senior cat years have been comfortable and filled with love. Hopefully they’ll have many more happy days together before it’s time for Flossie to move on.
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Still a beauty. Sounds like she has a good human
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