I don’t always go sleuthing, but when I do, it’s immensely satisfying — and I have huge respect for the many online manul detectives who take pedigree research and manul identification to near art form. It’s worth noting how recently our collective knowledge has grown: just a couple of years ago, even basic details — names, ages, pedigrees, and which zoos housed manuls — were often unknown, or at least very difficult to find. And while much has been uncovered since, there are still missing links.
One mystery that lingered for years, and particularly intrigued me, was the question of who Petenka’s father was. Petenka was a long-lived, well-loved manul at Utah’s Hogle Zoo, but his paternal identity wasn’t publicly known. Inquiring with Red River Zoo’s care team and cross-checking the little available information online resulted in a satisfying conclusion: in 2011 at Red River Zoo, Igor and Elvira had Petenka. The start of a a truly famous lineage.
Igor himself had a story worth tracing. He was born on May 9, 2007, at Cincinnati Zoo along with siblings Boris, Sofiya, and Vera. From there, his trail all but disappeared in the public record for nearly a decade. The next verifiable point came much, much later with his arrival at Calgary Zoo Wilder Institute in Canada in 2018. In between lies the crucial chapter at Red River Zoo, where he fathered not only Petenka but, in 2010, a litter of five kittens: Anya, Belka, Alik, Luka, and Paval. Paval went on to father Garab and Yeshi, both known for their snarls and fierce expressions. Now that the pieces fit together, Igor’s distinctive features are unmistakable in Petenka and his siblings and relatives.
Petenka was a favorite of mine. A gentle giant of fluff, in his old age (he was already 12 when I first met him) he seemed devoted to the finer things in life. Namely napping and perching on a giant stump in the center of his enclosure. He earned the cheeky moniker “Potato” for his round, stoic presence. I was fortunate to have met him before his passing in September 2024, and aside from being delightfully fluffy and grumpy-faced, he was a prolific father and, most importantly (for me), the grandfather of Pazi. Understanding his lineage adds depth to his story (and Pazi’s!) and brings me a personal sense of closure.
There’s a thrill in solving these mysteries. But I admit, the more we fill in the blanks, the fewer puzzles remain, and there’s something bittersweet about that.
But wait! Maybe this wasn’t enough manul lore for your Monday? A fellow manul sleuth tipped me off that Igor and his siblings were actually raised by a domestic house cat. This practice isn’t all too uncommon; in ex-situ small cat breeding programs, domestic cats are sometimes introduced to manul litters to help with rearing. Lev, for example, was famously raised this way. In Igor’s case, his mother had fallen ill and was unable to care for her 2007 litter at Cincinnati Zoo. Fortunately, the zoo had a domestic cat who had just given birth, and the manul kittens were folded into her family. The result was a surreal household of tiny manuls and kittens growing up side-by-side. The chaos was immortalized in a few surviving Flickr photos: Photo 1, Photo 2, Photo 3, Photo 4.
This was a lot of fun! I'm glad you were able to find so much.
Amazing research you did there! And the photos on Flickr are just too good to be true <3