Mexican Hairless Cat

The Mexican Hairless cat, also known as Aztec cat or New Mexican Hairless was a purported breed of cat first documented in 1902 by Mr. E. J. Shinick, who owned a pair of hairless cats. Despite having long whiskers and eyebrows and being known to sprout light fur around their backs and tails in the winter, the cats were considered novelties at the time due to their lack of a furry coat. Their lack of a coat causes them to lose more body heat than other cat breeds. This resulted in this breed being both heat-seeking and warm to the touch.
In 1902, a couple from New Mexico received two hairless cats from a local Pueblo community. These were ostensibly the last survivors of an ancient Aztec breed of cat. The cats were littermates and noted to be 25% smaller than local shorthair cats. They were normally whiskered and seasonally coated, growing a ridge of fur down the mid-back and tail during the colder seasons. These were not the first hairless cats exhibited in the US, but they became the most famous. An earlier detailed report was of a pair of hairless cats in The Boston Post, January 22, 1878. Those cats were a brother and sister, with the brother being named "Scud" and the sister, “Mystery”. They were owned by William P. Marshall and were exhibited. Although novelties, they had an ordinary background, being born to a normal shorthair cat, and did not become a sensation.
In The Book of the Cat (1903, Public Domain), Frances Simpson reproduced a letter written by Mr. E. J. Shinick to Mr. H. C. Brooke regarding Mr. Shinick's hairless cats. Mr. Brooke commented "A most extraordinary variety, of which next to nothing appears to be known, is the hairless cat, and we cannot do better than quote in extenso the description given by the owner of what, if his surmise should unhappily prove to be correct, was the last pair of these peculiar animals, a portrait of which we give. We can only add, while deeply regretting that Mr. Shinick did not mate his cats, the earnest hope that we may hear that he has discovered the existence of other specimens."
From The Book of the Cat, Frances Simpson, 1903 (public domain):
E. J. Shinick, Albuquerque, New Mexico, February 3, 1902 In Animal Life and the World of Nature (Vol 1, 1902-1903), Mr. Shinick was quoted:
Mr. Shinick's cats, acquired in 1894, were reported in the press as Aztec cats, the last of their kind. At that time, distinctive non-pedigree cats were sometimes exhibited as curiosities or celebrities and their stories were displayed on their cages. It is conceivable that the story of a nearly extinct Aztec breed was invented to make random-bred hairless cats appear more exotic. According to a report in The Albuquerque Citizen, Albuquerque, New Mexico, dated Wednesday, May 6, 1903:
The male cat, Dick, died in 1902 or 1903. In 1908, the female, Nellie, died. According to The New York Times of December 31, 1908:
According to the New York Tribune, also of December 31, 1908, “Death, too, has invaded the exhibit, for the Mexican hairless cat died on the way to the scene of her expected triumph. This cat, which was the property of Miss. L. Spink, of Big Lake, Minnesota, is said to be the last of a famous Aztec race.” The owner's name appears to be an error.
In The Albuquerque Journal of December 29, 1928 (probably a reprint of an earlier article), it was reported, “T. J. Shinick, of this city, received a letter from Washington yesterday saying that the hairless cat, Nellie, which he sent to the national cat show, died of dropsy.” Dropsy is an accumulation of water in the soft tissues, which can be due to heart failure or, in cats, feline infectious peritonitis.
After that time, other randomly occurring hairless cats were also called (New) Mexican Hairless or Aztec cats. The term became generic instead of referring to the cats' location of origin. Charles Henry Lane reported in his book "Rabbits, Cats and Cavies" (1903) that a Mexican Hairless Cat called "Jesuit" belonged to the Hon. Mrs. McLaren Morrison (a notable cat breeder and collector of rarities). This was the only specimen Mr. Lane had seen, and he believed it to be the only one ever exhibited in England. A portrait of the cat was included in his book. Jesuit could have been the result of another random mutation, because Nellie was considered by her caretaker as being too valuable to travel.
The San Francisco Chronicle, May 11, 1919 reported: “Dr. Cecil French of Washington owned perhaps the strangest pet feline of all – a hairless Aztec cat. On account of the great difference in climatic conditions between Washington and Mexico, the home of this feline curiosity, Dr. French housed ‘Moko,’ as his Aztec pet was known, in a glass case with regulated temperature.” It doesn't give the date when Dr. French owned a hairless cat, but 1919 is a decade after Nellie's death.
Interest in the hairless cats of New Mexico was revived by Mr. H.C. Brooke in 1926. His queries were printed in The Albuquerque Journal of January 12, 1926 and The El Paso Herald (Texas) of March 15, 1926. Mr. Brooke's letter read: "They were obtained from some Indians, and that the Jesuit Fathers thought they were the last survivors of an ancient Aztec breed. Most unfortunately, Mr. Shinick didn’t mate the pair, because they were brother and sister, and apparently did not preserve the bodies on death."
Mr. Shinick's daughter, Mrs. Michael Palladino, replied in a letter to The Albuquerque Journal on January 14, 1926: According to Mrs. Palladino, her father had two of the hairless cats, a male and a female. He intended to mate them, but the male was stolen. The female he kept until she was about 13 years old, then sent her to the Smithsonian Institution in Washington. She died soon after arriving in Washington, and Mrs. Palladino said the body was mounted for display in the museum. Mrs. Palladino believed that was in December 1909. She did not know where her father obtained the cats.
The Montana Butte Standard, December 26, 1937 reported "Mexican hairless cats are supposedly extinct, a specimen is owned in New Mexico, says Mr. Crawford, and there may be others," but this claim was not substantiated.
On March 20, 1956, The Albuquerque Journal printed another request for information:
Mrs. Palladino replied in The Albuquerque Journal, April 3, 1956 that her father, the late Thomas J. Shinick, had given her two hairless Mexican cats as pets in approximately 1894. She named them Dick and Nellie, and owned them for several years. One morning Dick didn't come home, and the family told her that the milkman had stolen him. When Nellie was about 15 years old, her father decided that because hairless cats were so rare, the Smithsonian Institution might be interested. Officials of the institution requested to see the cat Nellie. Mrs. Palladino said Nellie had arrived in Washington in good condition, but died a month later, after which she was exhibited as a taxidermy specimen.
This indicates that the Mexican Hairless, or Aztec, breed was a pair of hairless siblings given a fictionalized account of their origin and the romantic suggestion that they were the last of their breed. The term Mexican Hairless Cat became a generic term for any hairless cat until 1931 when hairless kittens were born to ordinary furred cats in France and were exhibited by Professor E. Letard.