If the cartoon character Tweety were to see the feline breed Selkirk Rex, it would have said, "I thought I saw a poodle cat," not the standard "I thought I taw a puddy tat" whenever she spots Sylvester.

The poodle cat belongs to the Selkirk Rex breed, which was the subject of a study published by scientists at a Vienna, Austria university. The study looked into the morphological and genetic characterisation of this particular breed of cat that sports curly fur like poodles, but purrs.

The study, made by researchers from the Institute of Animal Breeding and Genertics' Department for Biomedical Sciences at the University of Veterinary Medicine Vienna, confirmed the new breed of cat that came from a spontaneous mutation discovered in the U.S. in 1987.

The Selkirk Rex mutation is automal dominant and has a different phenotype from the established Cornish and Devon Rex breeds that have curly-coat mutations.

It was first discovered in the U.S. when a female kitten in Montana was observed to have thick curly hair never seen before by breeders. Persian breeder Jeri Newman adopted the kitten and called her Miss DePesto after a curly haired character in the TV show Moonlighting.

However, despite their cuteness, raising poodle cats are not ideal for pet lovers who have allergies from animal hair since the Selkirk Rex sheds a lot of its fur.