Paw-some cat has 24 toes

Twenty-Four is 17 years old

Harold Dingess (pictured) and his wife Betty Dingess are celebrating their cat Twenty-Four turning 17 years old in 2022. The cat got its name due to having six toes on each foot. (Citizen photo by Roger Smith)

BY ROGER SMITH
MOUNTAIN CITIZEN

Most cats have 18 toes — five toes on each of their front feet and four on the back. A paw-some cat in Martin County has 24 toes.

“His name is Twenty-Four because he has six toes on each foot,” owner Harold Dingess of Debord said.

Popularly known as “mitten kittens” or “Hemingway cats,” the 17-year-old domestic shorthair cat has a congenital physical anomaly called polydactyly (Greek for “many digits”). This genetic mutation causes cats to be born with more than the usual number of toes on one or more of their paws.

While most polydactyl cats have extra toes on their front paws, fewer have them on the back paws, and even fewer have them on all paws like Twenty-Four.

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