Born December 22, 2001, CC, for "CopyCat" or "Carbon Copy", was a brown tabby and white domestic shorthair and the first cloned pet. CC's surrogate mother was a tabby, but her genetic donor, Rainbow, was a calico domestic shorthair. The first commercially cloned cat was "Little Nicky" who cost his owner $50,000, making him one of the most expensive cats ever.

Ancient Egyptians worshipped a Cat Goddess, often represented as half feline, half woman, whom they called Bastet. Throughout most of ancient Egyptian history, she was a lioness warrior goddess of the sun, but Greeks occupying ancient Egypt toward the end of its civilization changed her into a goddess of the moon.

The Simpsons have gone through a number of cats, most of which have been named Snowball.

There are approximately 60,000 hairs per square inch on the back of a cat and about 120,000 per square inch on its underside.

The English term tabby comes from a translation of the French for "striped silk taffeta", which derives from the French tabis, meaning "a rich watered silk (originally striped)", in turn from Middle French atabis (14th century), from the Arabic term attabiya, from Attabiy, a neighbourhood of Baghdad where such cloth was first made.

Other names for the cougar include puma, mountain lion, Florida panther, red tiger and catamount.

The Scottish Fold is a breed of domestic cat with a natural dominant-gene mutation that affects cartilage throughout the body, causing the ears to "fold", bending forward and down towards the front of their head, which gives the cat what is often described as an "owl-like" appearance.

Modern cats fall into two subfamilies: Pantherinae and Felinae. In prehistoric times, there was a third subfamily, the Machairodontinae, which included the saber-toothed cats, such as the Smilodon.

No one could accuse Salvador Dalí of conforming to the norm, and his choice of pet was no exception. He owned a Colombian ocelot named Babou.

In Thailand, the Korat is known colloquially as the "good luck cat". Traditionally, they are given in pairs to newlyweds or people who are highly esteemed, for good luck.