It is purported that that most toes ever found on a cat, is 32 toes, 8 on each paw. Currently, the record setter is Tiger, a 27-toed cat who resides in Alberta, Canada.
Cats with more than 5 toes on each paw as known as polydactyl cats, from the Greek words poly (“many”) and daktulos (“fingers”). Genetically, polydactylism is a dominant trait, so that if one parent has extra toes, 50% of the kittens will have it too.
It is believed that in the 1600’s, English sailors took cats on their ships to Boston, America as they were considered to be good luck. In particular, polydactyl cats with their broader paws were a favourite of sailors. These cats, with their multiple toes had good balance during rough seas, and were better at keeping mice and rats under control. Consequently, the sailors took very good care of the cats and believed that if the ship’s cat fell overboard, then the weather conditions would change resulting in the ship sinking in a storm. The offspring of these cats are believed to have then travelled on trading ships that left from Boston to ports along the eastern seaboard. Consequently, there is a higher number of polydactyl cats in Nova Scotia, Canada and the Massachusetts area.
Polydactyl cats are also referred to as “mitten cats,” “thumb cats,” or “Hemingway cats”. The latter name refers to the author Ernest Hemingway, who in the 1930s was allegedly given a polydactyl kitten by a sea captain named Stanley Dexter. That cat went on to parent numerous polydactyl kittens at Hemingway’s Key West, Florida, home.
The Hemingway home was built in 1851 and purchased by the Hemingways (Ernest and his second wife, Pauline) in the 1930’s. Today the home is a National Historical Landmark, tourists flocking to see the home, that houses many of Hemingway's personal furnishings; European antiques, writing studio, trophy mounts and of course the Hemingway cats. As Hemingway once wrote in a letter, “one cat just leads to another”, and today nearly 50 descendents of that original kitten still live at the Hemingway home in Key West, Florida.