Headline figures
Every value below is a figure, not a hand-typed number -- click one for its source, method, and caveats. A dashed amber badge means preliminary: not a guess, but a method that hasn't had a full review yet. Where a figure is a genotype/mutation-carrier rate rather than a diagnosis rate, or rests on a small sample, that is spelled out in the unit right next to the value, not buried in the caveats.
Cat breeds recognised/listed by CFA
cfa.org/breeds/ (https://cfa.org/breeds/) is CFA's own breed-directory page but its infinite-scroll grid is broken as of the fetch date and only ever renders 12 of the breeds; the count here comes from the find-a-breeder tool's breed dropdown instead, which is server-rendered and complete.
Cat breeds recognised/listed by TICA
TICA lists longhair/shorthair variants of many breeds as separate pages (e.g. Bengal and Bengal Longhair), and includes non-pedigree categories (Household Cat, Household Pet Kitten) and a genetic-model page (Cherubim) among the 85 -- this is a count of pages on TICA's own browse index, not a normalized breed-standard count comparable one-to-one with CFA or FIFe.
Cat breeds recognised/listed by FIFe
Some FIFe breed pages cover a longhair/shorthair pair or a house-cat category under one URL (FIFe's own grouping, e.g. "British Longhair/Shorthair"); the count is pages, matching how FIFe itself presents the roster, not a re-split into coat-length variants.
Spread between the largest and smallest cat-registry breed count (TICA 85, CFA 45, FIFe 37)
The three registries count breeds on different bases (TICA counts longhair/shorthair variants and non-pedigree categories as separate listings; FIFe pools some variants into one page; CFA excludes provisional breeds not yet fully recognised) -- the spread reflects real definitional differences between kennel clubs, not just recognition lag.
Longest Lived breed, Teng 2024 (VetCompass UK) life expectancy at age 0: Burmese
n = 45
Only breeds this study reports (>=15 study animals per the study's own inclusion floor) are eligible -- not a claim about every breed that exists.
Shortest Lived breed, Teng 2024 (VetCompass UK) life expectancy at age 0: Sphynx
n = 18
Only breeds this study reports (>=15 study animals per the study's own inclusion floor) are eligible -- not a claim about every breed that exists.
Top attributed cause of death in UK primary-care cats: Trauma (O'Neill 2015)
n = 405
Trauma and renal disorder are nearly tied (12.2% vs 12.1%) -- treat this as 'among the top two', not a clear single leader.
Annual US ED visits for cat-caused bite/sting injuries
NEISS-AIP records the injury source as 'cat' but includes scratches as well as bites; not a pure bite count.
Annual US ED visits for dog bites
This is a secondary citation inside the Langley 2014 paper's introduction, not that paper's own finding -- included here only to give the cat figure a same-document, like-for-like comparison point.
Maine Coon Cat: rank #1 in CFA's 2026 most-popular-breeds ranking
Estimated total number of owned cats in the United States
Survey-based estimate (opt-in online panel, ~7,519 respondents), not a census.
Share of US households owning at least one cat
Survey-based estimate (opt-in online panel, ~7,519 respondents), not a census.
Most common recorded disorder in UK primary-care cats: Dental disorder (O'Neill et al. 2023)
n = 3870
95% CI 20.62-21.81%.
Maine Coon: MYBPC3 (any variant) gene-mutation carrier prevalence (cited in Vet Sci 2025 review)
This project fetched a literature review, not the primary study the review cites for this figure -- see this data file's notes.
Persian and Persian-related breeds (Iran): Autosomal dominant polycystic kidney disease (ADPKD), PKD1 c.10063C>A carrier prevalence
n = 47
22/47 cats positive. Convenience sample of cats presented for testing in Iran, not a random general-population sample; 'Persian-related breeds' pooled with Persian, not broken out.
1 breed(s) marketed as hypoallergenic in this corpus's fetched sources (Siberian); 0 breeds have an open-access study in this corpus directly measuring a breed-level Fel d1 reduction
This corpus fetched claim pages for only one breed (Siberian) and found no open-access study directly comparing Fel d1 across multiple named breeds -- both counts reflect what this project could fetch, not an exhaustive survey of every breed-hypoallergenic claim or every allergen study that may exist elsewhere.
Russian Blue: highest reported probability for shyness towards strangers among 19 cat breeds/breed groups; Burmese had the lowest (Salonen et al. 2019)
n = 5726
The numeric value is the whole-study breed-effect chi2 for this trait, not a Russian Blue-specific score -- read the subject text, not the number, for the named breeds.
The questions
How many breeds are there?
Registries disagree, and the disagreement is itself a figure -- TICA's 85-breed count, CFA's 45 and FIFe's 37 are each counted straight off that registry's own site (2026-09-07), not reconciled into one number.
Cat breeds recognised/listed by CFA
- cfa.org/breeds/ (https://cfa.org/breeds/) is CFA's own breed-directory page but its infinite-scroll grid is broken as of the fetch date and only ever renders 12 of the breeds; the count here comes from the find-a-breeder tool's breed dropdown instead, which is server-rendered and complete.
- CFA breed list is a copyrighted compilation; only the count and the fact that Persian is one breed with seven colour divisions are recorded here, not the list itself.
Cat breeds recognised/listed by TICA
- TICA lists longhair/shorthair variants of many breeds as separate pages (e.g. Bengal and Bengal Longhair), and includes non-pedigree categories (Household Cat, Household Pet Kitten) and a genetic-model page (Cherubim) among the 85 -- this is a count of pages on TICA's own browse index, not a normalized breed-standard count comparable one-to-one with CFA or FIFe.
- tica.org blocks scripted HTTP clients (Cloudflare bot protection); this figure was captured via a real browser and is not mechanically re-verifiable by this repo's own scripts without repeating that browser session.
Cat breeds recognised/listed by FIFe
- Some FIFe breed pages cover a longhair/shorthair pair or a house-cat category under one URL (FIFe's own grouping, e.g. "British Longhair/Shorthair"); the count is pages, matching how FIFe itself presents the roster, not a re-split into coat-length variants.
- FIFe breed list is a copyrighted compilation; only the count is recorded here, not the list itself.
Spread between the largest and smallest cat-registry breed count (TICA 85, CFA 45, FIFe 37)
- The three registries count breeds on different bases (TICA counts longhair/shorthair variants and non-pedigree categories as separate listings; FIFe pools some variants into one page; CFA excludes provisional breeds not yet fully recognised) -- the spread reflects real definitional differences between kennel clubs, not just recognition lag.
How long does each breed live?
Life expectancy at age 0 from a UK veterinary clinic population (Teng et al. 2024, VetCompass) -- a clinic population, not a census of all cats, and every breed sample here is well under 100 animals.
Longest Lived breed, Teng 2024 (VetCompass UK) life expectancy at age 0: Burmese
- Only breeds this study reports (>=15 study animals per the study's own inclusion floor) are eligible -- not a claim about every breed that exists.
Shortest Lived breed, Teng 2024 (VetCompass UK) life expectancy at age 0: Sphynx
- Only breeds this study reports (>=15 study animals per the study's own inclusion floor) are eligible -- not a claim about every breed that exists.
What do they die of?
Top named cause of death, UK primary-care cats of all ages (O'Neill et al. 2015) -- a photo-finish with the #2 cause, see the figure's own caveats.
Which breeds are popular?
CFA's own 2026 ranked release (not a registration count -- CFA doesn't publish the counts behind the ranking) and the AVMA's survey estimate of the US cat population.
Maine Coon Cat: rank #1 in CFA's 2026 most-popular-breeds ranking
Estimated total number of owned cats in the United States
- Survey-based estimate (opt-in online panel, ~7,519 respondents), not a census.
- Pedigree/registered cats are a small share of this total; most owned cats are not a recognised breed.
Share of US households owning at least one cat
- Survey-based estimate (opt-in online panel, ~7,519 respondents), not a census.
- Pedigree/registered cats are a small share of this total; most owned cats are not a recognised breed.
Do cats bite, and which ones?
Is there a public dataset pairing cat bites with breed and a denominator (bites per breed per population-of-that-breed)?
No. Searched 2026-09-07.
No public source pairs cat bites with breed and a denominator. Even the species-level cat-bite figures below come from injury-surveillance (ED visits) or a single city's animal-control records, not a breed-level registry. This site ships species-level cat-vs-dog figures only and states this gap explicitly rather than fabricating a per-breed rate.
No per-breed cat bite rate exists anywhere this project has found. What ships instead: the species-level (cat vs dog) figures below.
Annual US ED visits for cat-caused bite/sting injuries
- NEISS-AIP records the injury source as 'cat' but includes scratches as well as bites; not a pure bite count.
- Nationally representative ED-visit estimate (weighted sample), not a census of all cat bites/scratches -- most are not treated in an ED.
Annual US ED visits for dog bites
- This is a secondary citation inside the Langley 2014 paper's introduction, not that paper's own finding -- included here only to give the cat figure a same-document, like-for-like comparison point.
- Different measurement window (2005-2009) than the cat figure (2001-2010 average); not a same-period ratio.
Cat bites judged provoked (single-city study)
- Single city (El Paso, TX), 1995, animal-control surveillance records -- not a national figure, and 'provoked' is the reporting officer's judgment call, not a standardized clinical definition.
Per-breed figures
43 breeds have at least one sourced figure -- longevity, causes of death, bodyweight, FIFe category, temperament, disorders, HCM/PKD genotype rates, popularity, and allergy, wherever a source covers that breed. Browse the breed index →