When man-boobs flap in the wind
A male cat's "primordial pouch" can fool the casual onlooker into thinking he's a pregnant she
AS MY friend gets out of her car, she looks upwards to see what my little house looks like. Then she starts laughing.
“Laurie!” she giggles. “You have to be careful! There’s a pregnant cat up there, and she’s trying to get inside your house! You’re going to have kittens all over the place!”
I look up, but I don’t see any cat. “Are you sure?” I ask.
“Of course, I’m sure,” she says. “I know a pregnant cat when I see one.”
I look again, but I still don’t see any cat. “What colour is she?”
“Cream or light grey,” she says.
Then I know which cat my friend has seen. The cat is definitely not pregnant, and she’s even more definitely not a she. It’s Thong, one of the two soi boys who think my house is a cat hotel. He’s probably climbing up to the third floor, where he’ll wait until I let him in.
I also understand why my friend would think she was looking at a pregnant cat. Thong has a layer of fat and skin that hangs down from his abdomen.
This flap, which has the technical term “primordial pouch”, is quite common in male cats, but in different sizes. Thong’s friend Thep has a very little one, and brat-cat Yoyo didn’t have one until he reached 10 years old a year or so ago.
Neutering doesn’t necessarily cause the pouch to appear. Some breeds, like the bengal, are required to have a flap. Other cats develop the flap simply because of their DNA.
“Primordial” means “ancient”, “earliest”, “first”, and you’ll see this primordial pouch in species of cats that developed earlier than domestic cats did, such as lions and tigers.
The flap doesn’t even mean that your cat is fat. Thong’s a big boy, and his flap is huge – but he’s not fat. His body is well-muscled, except for that flap, which feels like a water balloon that’s half-full.
Researchers say that the pouch serves several purposes. One use is that when two cats fight, they use their back claws to scratch their opponent. The pouch, with its padding of skin and fat, helps protect their delicate abdomen.
The flap also lets the cat have enough freedom of movement to stretch and to extend his back legs when he’s running. Some researchers have the theory that the flap enabled the stomachs of the cat’s wild ancestors to stretch enough to hold extra food, say, when enjoying a meal of freshly killed buffalo.
This primordial pouch doesn’t indicate any health problems. It does seem to bother people who think it makes their cat look fat or not fit. I’ve even met one cat-lover who’s been looking for a vet who is willing to do some cosmetic surgery and remove this flap.
I hope you’re not considering this option. People care about how they look, but a cat with a primordial pouch is quite happy with his appearance. For your pet, surgery is for correcting problems concerning life and death, not for removing a helpful part of his body.
Thong does have one problem. Whenever he comes back after roaming the soi, the lower part of his abdomen, where the flap is, is covered in bruises and scratches. As he climbs up to the third floor of my house, he can’t really pull in his stomach, and the flap, which really flaps, hits against trees, bushes and even any bits of metal that stick out from the house.
The injuries are minor. As long as I ensure that the scratches don’t become infected, he’ll be okay, even with his huge man-boobs flapping away.
