Ernie the Polydactyl (or Hemingway cat) going ga-ga over the scale Yesterday I promised a blog about Pepper the Vietnamese Pot-bellied pig. Sorry, but I changed my mind. It's a woman's perogative after all.
Instead, today's blog is a lesson in vocabulary. Before you yawn and go check your horoscope or see what everyone's posting on Facebook, you should know that I'll be writing about cats with THUMBS.
Cats with thumbs, or any extra toes on their paws, are known as polydactyl cats, ie, cats with many digits. Pterodactyls were flying dinosaurs. They might have had extra toes. I don't really know. But pterodactyl SOUNDS an awful lot like polydactyl.
Why cats with opposable thumbs haven't taken over the world yet is beyond me, but I suspect it has something to do with their extra toe not being a true thumb. So they're really not all that good for opening cabinet doors or handling tools or using computers--all necessary for world domination.
Polydactyl cats are also known as Hemingway cats because Ernest Hemingway had cats with extra toes down in his Key West home. Rumor has it that all polydactyl cats are descended from a Hemingway cat. I don't know if that's true, either, but it sounds really cool. Ernie is from Jacksonville, Florida so there might be some truth to that.
We originally called our polydactyl cat Little Ernie Hemingway, but he quickly outgrew the "Little" part of his name and now we just call him Ernie. He has a thumb on each front paw and is really good at catching toys tossed in the air.
He also loves it when I weigh myself. Out of the five cats in the house, on weigh day Ernie magically appears as soon as I step on the scale. Usually he tries to grab my toes as I stand on the scale, but he was a bit camera shy today and wouldn't perform on film.
I did, however, get him to look up at me.
Ernie missing a major film opportunity
Ernie and Sabrina on the kitty tree. You can see his thumbs in this picture. My niece wanted to name him "Thumbkins."
And that concludes today's lesson on polydactyl vs pterodactyl. Thanks for tuning in. Ernie thanks you, too.
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