Tabouli and Baba Ganoush

As I mentioned in my previous post, I was lucky enough to meet the cloned kitties - Tabouli and Baba Ganoush - at their first public appearance (New York Cat Show 9-10 October).

Here's Baba with Leslie, the Feline Surrogate Manager

Tabouli and Baba are the second and third cloned kitties (the first was CC) and the first two kitties cloned using GSC's chromatin transfer cloning technique.

The kittens were born in separate litters two days apart and to two different surrogate mothers - a tortoisesell named Callie and a lynx point named Sunny.

Callie (Tabouli's surrogate mother) had not had kittens before so Sunny (Baba's surrogate mother) helped her during the birth.

The genetic donor for these two cloned kitties was Tahini, a Bengal cat who lives with the GSC CEO's family.

Here's Tahini with Leslie

An interesting side note is that Bengal cats are the first documented cross between a nondomestic cat, the Leopard Cat (Prionailurus bengalensis), and the domestic cat (Felis silvestris catus also known as Felis silvestris domesticus). The first three generations after the cross are considered foundation cats to the Bengal breed. It's not until the fourth generation (and beyond) that the cats are officially Bengal breed cats.

Independent genetic analysis of Tahini, Tabouli, Baba and Sunny was done by the veterinary school at the University of California who confirmed that Tabouli and Baba are genetically identical to Tahini and genetically unrelated to Sunny.

Below are some more pics of the cloned kitties from the GSC's media section.

Here's Tahini with Lou Hawthorne, CEO of GSC

Tabouli and Baba being adorable

CC looking in the mirror. Isn't she just the sweetest little thing?

If you want to see these more of these adorable kitty clones, check out the kittie clip on the GSC website.