Cabbits

[CenTex]

Originally Posted by kitoboo

I has cabbits.

I vote fake. (and that cat looks seriously annoyed at that moment)

Originally Posted by kitap

Fox with mange?

I agree.

[Floater]

If you can get a hybrid of capercaillie and hare, why not?

I would be all over getting a cabbit, if they turned into spaceships, and toddlers, even just the hoppy meowing carrot eating version was cute enough to justify a pet for me, then again Ryo-Ohki is one of the cutest things to come out of anime, and Japan is good at the cute.

My dog bunny hops around on the bed, should I start telling people he's part lab, part rabbit, otherwise known as a Dabbit?

And for good mesure, a gratuitous cabbit picture:

[Xia]

I have a cabbit! Like this (actually mine's cuter...) It doesn't turn into a spaceship, though... I think it's defective.

Does "gratuitous" mean "invisible" ? Because I can't see it.

[CenTex]

Tonight on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno, he was doing his "headlines" segment, and someone had sent in a classified ad for cabbits.

[llewtrah]

Originally Posted by CenTex

Tonight on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno, he was doing his "headlines" segment, and someone had sent in a classified ad for cabbits.

I've also seen cabbit ads on some of the petstore bulletin boards online .

Originally Posted by Xia

I have a cabbit! Like this (actually mine's cuter...) It doesn't turn into a spaceship, though... I think it's defective.

Does "gratuitous" mean "invisible" ? Because I can't see it.

LOL! I have the same plush! and grr! it did work, once, i'll have to see if i can dig up the link again...

[llewtrah]

One for older Snopesters (or Snopesters's parents) to rack their memory over. This results from an email I received last night.

In 1977 my correspondent lived in Farmington, New Mexico and met a man at the local shopping mall mall who had a pink-eyed white cabbit on display. My correspondent insists its was a half rabbit and half cat crossbreed and not a defect and had been found near Farmington. The owner and his cabbit apparently appeared on the Johnny Carson show.

I know it is way, way back in time, but does anyone know anything of that TV appearance? Or indeed of other talk shows that have perpetuated the cabbit UL? I'm willing to believe someone showed what they naively believed was a crossbreed and got their 5 minutes of fame for it (or more cynically they earned a few dollars out of their unusual kitty).

(Sounds like pink-eyed albino bobtail-type. There was a "cabbit" reported from New Mexico in 1977, exhibited later in Los Angeles and confirmed to be a cat with a pelvic deformity. The American Bobtail breed originates from Arizona so the bobtail phenotype exists in the New Mexico and Arizona regions. A white "cabbit" shown on a Discovery channel pet programme in 2008 was revealed to be a Manx kitten.)

[snopes]

I remember cabbits on the spoof talk show, Fernwood Tonight.

"That is not his cabbit -- it's my cabunny!"

- snopes

[llewtrah]

Originally Posted by snopes

I remember cabbits on the spoof talk show, Fernwood Tonight.

"That is not his cabbit -- it's my cabunny!"

- snopes

I wonder how many people have seen a spoof like that and misremember it as a real talk show? Especially after the passage of 30 years and more so if they were young when they saw the supposed talk show. That has happened with British spoof Brass Eye (some of the clips look genuine if taken out of context).

Any idea when Fernwood Tonight was aired? I'd like to add the cite and date to my ongoing rebuttal of cabbits!

[snopes]

Any idea when Fernwood Tonight was aired?

It ran only during the summer of 1977, although it had a second season the following year revamped as America 2-Night:

http://us.imdb.com/title/tt0075505/

http://us.imdb.com/title/tt0076976/

- snopes

[llewtrah]

Originally Posted by snopes

It ran only during the summer of 1977, although it had a second season the following year revamped as America 2-Night:

http://us.imdb.com/title/tt0075505/

http://us.imdb.com/title/tt0076976/

- snopes

I am willing to lay money on that being the talk show that way too many of my correspndents remember as being Carson or some other real show

[dungeondragon18]

Is it even possible for rabbits and cats to crossbreed? You'd think that they'd be so genetically different that they just wouldn't be compatible, even if scientists and the latest fertility techniques were involved.

[llewtrah]

Originally Posted by dungeondragon18

Is it even possible for rabbits and cats to crossbreed? You'd think that they'd be so genetically different that they just wouldn't be compatible, even if scientists and the latest fertility techniques were involved.

It isn't possible which is the point. The problem is that lots of folks insist cabbits exist. I wish I had a quid (or couple of dollars) for every email I get saying my articles are wrong about cabbits because the sender has seen/stroked one or seen them on Johnny Carson. The person who took the "cabbit" in the show wasn't in anyway qualified to identify it as a hybrid. I believe Carson also lacks such qualifications, but it was a neat story (twice) and lots of people saw and believed it. When the "cabbit" was identified by zoologists as a cat with a deformed pelvis, this did not appear on Carson. Lots of folks don't realise the story was debunked and don't believe me when I tell them. It was on Johnny Carson so it must be true!!!! The cabbit thing was fuelled by a newspaper hoax (part publicity stunt) in 1951 and a more recent hoax item in an AWRE (wildlife rescue) newsletter in Jan 2006 which used doctored photos and a hoax story (I think AWRE printed in good faith and a lot of folks now cite this one as fact because it mentions in vitro fertilisation ..... yet it wasn't it in peer-reviewed articles, or in New Scientist).

The funny thing is, there were several of these "cabbits" reported in Texas and New Mexico area. The American Bobtail was developed from a cat found in Arizona. It's a wide area, but it suggests a bobtailed trait has become established in free-roaming cats. Nowadays, cabbits are less in vogue and they get claimed to be bobcat hybrids (which have also never been proven genetically) which is at least more likely than cat-rabbits .

I would mention something about hanging my Munchkin, but that would sound inappropriate in a cat thread!

[Floater]

Originally Posted by llewtrah

Lots of folks don't realise the story was debunked and don't believe me when I tell them.

Is there even a need to start thinking about debunking such an outrageous claim?

[kitap]

Originally Posted by llewtrah

One for older Snopesters (or Snopesters's parents) to rack their memory over. This results from an email I received last night.

In 1977 my correspondent lived in Farmington, New Mexico and met a man at the local shopping mall mall who had a pink-eyed white cabbit on display. My correspondent insists its was a half rabbit and half cat crossbreed and not a defect and had been found near Farmington. The owner and his cabbit apparently appeared on the Johnny Carson show.

I know it is way, way back in time, but does anyone know anything of that TV appearance? Or indeed of other talk shows that have perpetuated the cabbit UL? I'm willing to believe someone showed what they naively believed was a crossbreed and got their 5 minutes of fame for it (or more cynically they earned a few dollars out of their unusual kitty).

(Sounds like pink-eyed albino bobtail-type. There was a "cabbit" reported from New Mexico in 1977, exhibited later in Los Angeles and confirmed to be a cat with a pelvic deformity. The American Bobtail breed originates from Arizona so the bobtail phenotype exists in the New Mexico and Arizona regions. A white "cabbit" shown on a Discovery channel pet programme in 2008 was revealed to be a Manx kitten.)

I remember some man- a farmer?- well into his 70s or older appearing with what he called a chabbit or cabbit on Johnny Carson. It would have been sometime between 1977 and 1982. I remember because it somehow came up in conversation with friends the next day, with someone saying "poor animal, how can they do that?" and someone else saying "cats and rabbits can't interbreed; it's some sort of mutated cat or rabbit."

[llewtrah]

Originally Posted by kitap

I remember some man- a farmer?- well into his 70s or older appearing with what he called a chabbit or cabbit on Johnny Carson. It would have been sometime between 1977 and 1982. I remember because it somehow came up in conversation with friends the next day, with someone saying "poor animal, how can they do that?" and someone else saying "cats and rabbits can't interbreed; it's some sort of mutated cat or rabbit."

That would have been Val Chapman in 1977 (and again a few years later). His claim was debunked by zoologists in LA. It's was documented in the Fortean Times (in the 1980s I think). Unfortunately, the debunking wasn't publicised half as well as the initial claim.

(I sat down and did a timeline of the cabbit claims here)

[moonfall]

Sounds like somebody's been watching Tenchi Muyo.

Originally Posted by llewtrah

That would have been Val Chapman in 1977 (and
(I sat down and did a timeline of the cabbit claims here)

Woah woah woah. Wait a second! llewtrah, are you saying that YOU are the author of that website? Messybeasts? I have that bookmarked and reference it constantly. How did I not know this?