Maine Coon named Erebus Anomaly breaks previous record of 28 toes held for over two decades after overcoming illness
A Maine Coon kitten from Wisconsin overcame a bout with pneumonia to break a 24-year-old world record for most toes on a cat, setting the new mark at 29.
Erebus Anomaly’s unique story received US national media attention on Monday, when ABC’s World News Now program recounted what one of his owners called a “miraculous” recovery from illness in his infancy – and the subsequent Guinness World Record that he clinched.
Erebus’s unprecedented wealth of toes is evidently attributed to a genetic trait, polydactyly, that causes some cats to be born with extra phalanges and – according to a 2016 article in the Journal of Feline Medicine and Surgery – is relatively common in Maine Coons.
What does the pneumonia have to do with the record? It now sounds like the pneumonia gave it extra toes. I’m moderately confident that’s not how it happened.
It says the x-rays that were taken because of the pneumonia were important documentation for the toe count. Maybe not everything is easily externally visible so they wouldn’t have known without the pneumonia?
Really weird seeing photos of a cat with way too many toes and I’m the first one in the comments to find it weird that everyone is just accepting this as a real photo.
I mean it seems legit but, y’know? Too many digits on the Internet and all that? Lol
Missed opportunity. They should have named him Toeby.
Do you mean the previous record holder? He was called Toby. Missed opportunity indeed to add an extra ‘e’ in there.
Didn’t see that, actually. Toeny, then. Or Robertoe. Or Toeregard.
There are so many options, like toes on a polydactyl cat.
I’ve always loved how the word polydactyl sounds like a a dinosaur
Also I for one welcome cats getting opposable thumbs and taking over
Pterodactyl just means wing-finger. Polydactyl means many-finger.
Nothing more dinosaury than fingers!
That makes so much sense. Thanks for that
I completely misread that as a cat setting a record by breaking 29 of its toes and I am so glad I was wrong
Oh man, there is a record for that? Pawsitraction would have won that if they were still alive. Friends cat, had 7 beans on 3 of their paws and 9 on the other. Ah wells, probably for the best, would have gotten in the way of sitting quietly and cuddling, which is all them and their owner wanted in life.
