The cat has a rare genetic condition that makes him look like a weight lifter.
An incredibly muscular cat has taken the internet by storm — and shockingly, it’s not Buddy!
A Reddit user posted a photo of a Sphinx cat who looks like he eats UFC fighters for breakfast and bullies lions in his spare time. But it turns out there’s a medical reason for his bulging physique, and it’s not just the result of tens of thousands of kitty push-ups.
The hairless feline has “Myostatin-related muscle hypertrophy, a rare condition that causes muscles to grow excessively large,” the poster explained.
“Yes, you’re totally right, that IS your spot. Forget I even asked.”
Humans and animals can be impacted by the condition. Myostatin-related muscle hypertrophy also results in reduced body fat and doesn’t just potentially double muscle size — it results in increased strength as well, per the National Institutes of Health.
“Affected individuals have up to twice the usual amount of muscle mass in their bodies. They also tend to have increased muscle strength,” according to the NIH. “This condition is not known to cause any medical problems, and affected individuals are intellectually normal.”
When one user asked if the cat will be alright, another answered in the affirmative, but with a caveat: “Anyone who pisses him off won’t be.”
The cat’s already racked up nicknames like Kitbull, Katzenegger and The Purrminator.
Asked for comment on the photo, Buddy the Cat insisted the super-muscular cat poses no threat to him.
“My meowscles are even yuger, it’s just that you can’t see them because of my fur,” Buddy explained. “If I were a hairless breed like a Sphinx you would see my bulging meowscles, but I’m a Buddinese tiger, and my coat is luxuriously silky smooth.”
Buddy the Cat, pictured, says he’s “totally ripped” under his fur.
The lead author of a UK study claims it’s “likely that all cats have an element of psychopathy.” Buddy the Cat disagrees.
NEW YORK — Buddy the Cat condemned British scientists who pegged cats as psychopaths in a new study, saying he’d like to “introduce them to my claws,” if not for the fact that he’s too charming to do something so uncouth.
“I was offended when I read that study, frankly,” Buddy said, pausing to spit out the bones of a mouse he’d just killed and sip from his bird blood cocktail. “The very idea is preposterous.”
Psychologistsfrom the University of Liverpool and Liverpool John Moores University developed a questionnaire that asks cat owners servants to rate their felines’ behavior based on 46 different behavioral statements.
Examples of the statements include: “My cat torments their prey rather than killing it straight away”, “my cat vocalises loudly (e.g meows, yowls) for no apparent reason”, and “my cat is very excitable (e.g goes into ‘overdrive’ and becomes uncoordinated).”
Respondents were asked to rate, on a 5-point scale, how closely each statement applied to their cat(s).
“Asking our servants to respond to the survey was the first mistake they made,” Buddy continued, using a claw to dig bits of mouse from between his teeth. “I mean, do you ask Beethoven’s gardener to evaluate the master’s symphonies? Would you ask the overnight office cleaning crew at Apple to gauge the brilliance of Steve Jobs? Would you ask Brian Scalabrine to weigh in on the transcendent talent of Michael Jordan? Of course not. So why would you ask my human to evaluate me? Why would you think such a simple creature could hope to understand the cathedral that is my mind?”
“And furthermore, why should I care? Does the lion concern himself with the opinions of sheep? I’m officially a jaguar, by the way. I don’t know if you knew that. Yeah. They welcomed me into their mystic community and call me Kinich Bajo, which means ‘god of wisdom.'”
Personality traits like delusions of grandeur, charm, lack of empathy and narcissism are typically associated with psychopaths, experts say. A psychopath might, for example, imagine he’s a large, muscular cat when in fact he’s 10 pounds soaking wet.
Buddy imagines himself as a powerful authoritarian leader
The degree of psychopathy varies widely among felines, lead author Rebecca Evans said.
“We believe that like any other personality trait, psychopathy is on a continuum, where some cats will score more highly than others,” Evans said. “It is likely that all cats have an element of psychopathy as it would have once been helpful for their ancestors in terms of acquiring resources, for example food, territory and mating opportunities.”
Frodo the Cat is 20 years old and doesn’t get around like he used to, so his handy human put his handy skills to work and built the little guy his own lift.
Liam Thompson is a 21-year-old Youtuber who’s known for building cool stuff.
His cat’s name may be Frodo, but Thompson said he’s in “Gandalf territory” at 20 years old and has been having trouble getting around to his favorite spots, especially a sunny corner of the backyard where he likes to sit poolside and enjoy the New Zealand warmth.
“Despite his ancient-ness, he still insists on hobbling down these stairs every day to sit out in the sun,” Thompson says in a video about his latest project. “That is, until today.”
The video shows the handy Kiwi building an “elevator” — more like a stair lift for a cat — out of wood, an electronic hoist and a handful of small hardware pieces. The passenger compartment is a simple cart, and at the press of a button the cart descends or ascends the stairs along a wooden track.
Frodo isn’t bothered in the slightest.
“Are you ready to go downstairs without having to move a muscle?” he asks his cat before the maiden ride. “I hope so, because it took me four days.”
Thompson is delighted as the elevator works perfectly and Frodo rides it without fear or protest, laughing as the orange senior cat makes himself comfortable during the ride. The current setup requires Thompson to push a button, but perhaps in the future he can add a simple button for Frodo directly on the cart.
Speaking of elevators, this cat thinks he’s Leslie Chow from The Hangover:
Owl Kitty’s human puts his beloved feline into an iconic scene from 1993’s Jurassic Park.
Owl Kitty’s human has put his house panther into The Matrix, John Wick, Home Alone, Titanic — and now the original Jurassic Park as a stand-in for the terrifying tyrannosaurus rex.
Despite standing at least 20 feet tall and weighing several tons, Jurassic Owl Kitty is a kindler, gentler threat to Sam Neill, Jeff Goldblum and the kids. Kitty just wants to rub up against the Jeep and purr, and perhaps score some cat food, not eat people like that evil dinosaur.
Plus we can now confirm that, even if they were twice the size of African elephants, cats would still be cute:
Both major party mayoral candidates in NYC are longtime animal welfare advocates.
We normally avoid politics on this blog except for the occasional light-hearted satire imagining Buddy as a comically inept president of the Americats, but we’ll make an exception for the New York City mayoral race, which features two animal-loving major party candidates.
Eric Adams, a Democrat, is a former NYPD captain, Brooklyn borough president and vegan who has supported TNR programs in Brooklyn, pushed for more animal-friendly housing in the city and hosted adoption events in his home borough, according to the Humane Society’s Legislative Fund.
Curtis Sliwa is best known nationally as the founder of the unarmed crime prevention group the Guardian Angels, and in New York as a host on the city’s biggest talk radio station. (He’s been on hiatus since launching his mayoral campaign to comply with election law.)
He survived an attempted mafia hit in 1992, jumping out of a cab after he was shot several times by Gotti family enforcers, and he’s a dedicated cat lover, sharing his home with 16 rescues. Most of Sliwa’s cats have disabilities or were pulled from local shelter kill lists. Not all of them are permanent, and the Sliwas consider themselves long-term fosters until they can find the right homes for special needs cats. Last year they were able to place 10 kitties in good homes.
Still, the felines come first in their 87th Street apartment.
“Guess what? It’s the cats who rule the roost,” Sliwa told a New York Post cameraman in June. “We take whatever room is left after the cats carve out their territory.”
Cat furniture dominates the studio apartment Sliwa shares with his wife, Nancy, who told the Post she’s considering adopting more furballs, including a special-needs rescue who is blind. (They had 15 cats at the time and have adopted one more since then.)
Turning to her husband, she quipped: “We might have to lose your half of the closet.”
The couple share litter box duties and clean the multiple boxes in their home at least three times a day, they told the Post.
NYC mayoral candidate Curtis Sliwa plays with his cats.
At the end of Tuesday’s televised mayoral debate, when asked which qualities they admire in their opponents, both Sliwa and Adams praised each other for their work with animals.
The city and its surrounding environs lean heavily blue. Sixty-eight percent of registered voters in the five boroughs are registered Democrats, and Adams holds a commanding 36-point lead according to the latest poll.
Like all Republicans who set their sights on the mayor’s job, Sliwa knew it was going to be an uphill battle even though New Yorkers have tired of the current mayor, Democrat Bill DeBlasio. Sliwa hopes one of his central campaign promises — to enact a no-kill policy across the city’s shelter system — will resonate with voters across the aisle.
Republicans who have won in the past have been centrist, like former Mayor Rudy Giuliani, or nominally Republican, like businessman turned politician Michael Bloomberg. The latter enjoyed widespread name recognition before he turned to politics and supplemented his campaign hauls with his own considerable resources.
Still, the Guardian Angels founder sees Gracie Mansion, the mayor’s Upper East Side home, as a potentially fantastic cat house.
“I’ve been in Gracie Mansion before,” Sliwa told New York magazine. “There is easily room in there for 60 cats.”
Pain In The Bud 