Leela the Mysteriously Furry "Hairless" Cat Proves That Bald Felines are Actually Much Weirder When They Have a Couple Tufts of Fur

The more you know

Posted by Jesse Kessenheimer

When you think of a hairless cat, the first thing that probably pops into your mind is the image of a wrinkled ballsack of a kitten with a crinkley forehead, buggy eyes, and an uncooked chicken aesthetic. Well, you're definitely not wrong. What some people don't realize is that some hairless cat breeds don't even come with a guarantee that they'll be completely bald. In fact, many “hairless” breeds can end up with patchwork fur and sometimes partial fur coverage, resulting in a supremely strange looking feline. Meet Leela, the furriest hairless cat you've never heard of.

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Bald cats have been the pet of choice for centuries for people with allergies, big bank accounts, and obsessions with tiny sweaters. What you probably didn't realize is that there are several breeds of hairless cats and sometimes, the whole “hairless” portion can be a bit of a dice roll. Leela is a donskoy (basically the Russian brand of a sphynx cat), so her baldness gene is more of a ‘possible hair loss-gene’. She was born completely furry and as she aged, lost hair along her spine, tail, and tip-top of her head.

Unlike her sphynx kitty sibling, Leela has whiskers, peach fuzz all over her body, and a furry underbelly that is both unsettling and endearing in equal measure.

Because Leela is a donskoy and not a sphynx, she also is much healthier. Sphynx cats are known to have short life spans, heart troubles, and tons of skin problems because their baldness is a result of centuries of inbreeding a recessive gene. Donskoy cats on the other hand are bald because of a dominant gene in their genetic code that causes prominent hair loss instead of complete hairlessness. Because of that, donskoy cats aren't nearly as inbred or susceptible to the same “deformities” of their comrades.

Because they still have some hair on their bodies, donskoy cats aren't completely hypoallergenic, but they are equally as creepy looking. So if someone is looking for a strange and inexplicably expensive cat breed to bring into their home, look no further than the donskoy, Russia's very own testicular feline of furrier proportions.