Meet the 'poodle cat': new breed declared

Curly-haired pets are all the rage amongst animal breeders these days, but this frizzy fellow was the result of a freak mutation amongst a litter of strays.

The Selkirk Rex has just been declared a separate breed after an extensive genetic analysis was published in the Journal of Heredity.

But the breed's origin now goes back nine generations, to a little abandoned kitten who caught the eye of a Persian breeder.

Naming the curly-haired critter Miss DePesto (after a similarly-coiffed character in the TV series Moonlighting), she mated her with a Persian cat, and a truly quirky new breed was born.

Mother Nature Network reports that the Selkirk Rex is the fourth type of curly haired cat discovered, but is distinct from other Rex breeds.

Unlike the Devon Rex and Cornish Rex, this breed’s hair is of normal length and isn’t prone to balding, and it differs from the LaPerm breed because its coat is thicker.

So will this breed spark the kind of rush to develop hypoallergenic "designer hybrids" we've seen with poodles in recent years?

It seems not. Sadly, the frequently-shedding puss is no less likely to evoke sniffles in the allergy-prone than its sleeker-looking cousins.

So it seems, for the Selkirk Rex, popularity will all come down to good looks.