We Maine Coons really earned our gentle giant nickname. The past two Guinness World Record holders for the World’s Longest Cat were both Maine Coons! The first, Stewie, was a gray tabby who measured 48.5 inches long – that’s just over 4 feet! The current (living) record holder is Barivel, who measures 47.2 inches. While Barivel isn’t quite as long as Stewie, he was only 2 years old when he took the title. Since Maine Coons can keep growing until age 4 or 5, Barivel may still become the world’s longest cat!

While the name Maine Coon makes it pretty clear exactly where I come from, humans have a lot of interesting theories as to how we first came about. Everyone agrees that my breed as it is today is native to the state of Maine – and we are the official state cat of Maine (duh!). But there are a lot of pawsitively fascinating stories about how my earliest ancestors first came to America. Because of my bushy tail and common brown tabby coloring, some humans believe that my ancestors were actually bred with raccoons! Of course, this is not biologically possible, but it did add the “coon” part to my name! Another famous folk tale surrounding my ancestors’ arrival in the United States is that we descended from six Turkish Angora cats belonging to the Queen of France, Marie Antoinette. As the story goes, the queen was planning to flee to America during the French Revolution, aided by ship captain Stephen Clough from Wiscasset, Maine. While she never made it aboard, her cats did, and so the legend states that the Maine Coon breed resulted from her royal Angoras breeding with domestic cats. While these are all fun stories, the most likely explanation (genetically speaking) is that the earliest Maine Coons were a mix between domestic cats and Norwegian Forest cats who sailed to America with the Vikings and other European sailors! Wherever we first came from, we were hardy working cats who were good mousers on ships and barn cats on farms. Our fur – including our tufted ears, “snowshoe” paws, and bushy tail – were all designed to keep us warm as we helped our humans in cold and snowy New England winters. As a native American breed, we were hugely popular in the United States... that is until the Persian breed came along and took our spot. By the 1950s, we were almost completely wiped out! Thankfully, a group of humans who were passionate about keeping our breed alive formed the Maine Coon Breeders and Fanciers Association in 1968. We were saved and our breed was officially recognized by the Cat Fanciers’ Association in 1976. Today, we are back on top as the 5th most popular cat breed!