An Abysinnian starred in the 1978 Disney movie The Cat From Outer Space. The movie follows Jake, an Abyssinian cat from another planet, as he tries to rebuild his spaceship after crash-landing on Earth. Wondering if Jake ever makes it back home? Guess you’ll have to watch the movie to find out!

My breed’s history is a little fuzzy, but the first written record of us dates back to the 19th century, during England’s Victorian Era. Cat shows were extremely pawpular and it was at one of these – the Crystal Palace Cat Show – that we Abyssinians made our debut! We even won third place! Back then, most humans believed that British soldiers had brought us back from Abyssinia, or modern day Ethiopia, after the Abyssinian War. But this was just speculation. Other humans thought that we hailed from ancient Egypt, and some went so far as to claim the Pharaohs had loved us. had it that we hailed None of this was true, but can you blame the humans for thinking it was? We do look very similar to the cats depicted in ancient Egyptian art! Just look at our large ears!) How do we know these rumors aren’t true? Well, the oldest taxidermied Abyssinian isn’t in Ethiopia or Egypt – it’s in a museum in Holland. The Leiden Zoological Museum purchased the Abyssinian sometime between 1834 and 1836, and the founder of the museum labeled it “Patrie, domestica India,” linking our homeland to Asia. Genetic testing eventually confirmed that we originated by the Indian Ocean, where English colonists may have picked us up during a stop in Calcutta, which was then an East India Company trading post. Nowadays, the humans think our ancestors are the Burmese, Siamese, and Russian Blue cats. Though we first arrived in the United States in the early 1900s, it wasn’t until the 1930s that an Abyssinian breeding program really took off. We have lots of nicknames – one of them being Aby Grabby,because we love to play with objects around the house! In 1934, we were registered by the Cat Fanciers Association. Since then, we’ve become one of the most popular purebred cats!