30/10/2026
🐾 Fun Fact Friday: Spooky Season Edition
Black cats have a reputation that's had a rough ride, and most of it has nothing to do with the cats themselves.
Here's the science bit first: the black cat isn't a breed, it's a coat. Their coat colour comes from a gene that boosts pigment production. That same gene also tinkers with the underlying tabby pattern, which means plenty of "black" cats are secretly tabbies in disguise. Take a proper look in bright sunlight and you can often spot faint ghost stripes, or a warm rusty brown glow across the belly and flanks. One complete black cat is the Bombay, bred to look like a mini panther!
The luck stories go both ways, and they're older than Halloween. In ancient Egypt, cats were revered, and the goddess Bastet was depicted as a black cat, which made harming one a serious crime. Sailors once believed a black cat aboard brought good luck and a safe voyage, and sailors' wives kept black cats at home to bring their husbands safely back from sea. Here in Wales, a black cat at the door was said to bring good fortune to the household, and in Scotland one turning up on your doorstep was a sign of coming prosperity.
During Medieval times things went badly wrong for the black cat , an association with witchcraft and evil that followed black cats across the Atlantic and into the shadows of Salem.
Which brings us to the part that still matters today: in rescue centres, black cats wait longer than any other cats for a home. Not because of anything they've done, just an old story nobody's quite shaken off.
So this Spooky Season, give a black cat a second look. The folklore says they bring luck. The science says they're just cats. Either way, you'd be the lucky one.
