Meet Cygnus, the Cat with the World's Longest, Most Luscious Tail

Meet Cygnus, the Cat with the World’s Longest, Most Luscious Tail

By Spooky on September 15th, 2017 Category: Animals

Lauren and Will Powers, of Ferndale, Michigan, don’t need to dust their home like the rest of us. Their cat, Cygnus, does it for them just by walking around the place and wagging his incredibly long and fluffy tail.

Cygnus Regulus Powers was recently featured in the 2018 Guinness Book of Records for having the “longest tail on a domestic cat”. The official measurement put his tail at a whopping 44.66 cm (17.58 inches) from the base of his butt to the end of the “meat” of his tail, but it must have been done a while ago, because in June of last year, his owner Will Powers told Love Meow that Cygnus’ tail already measured 18.4 inches (24 inches, if you count the fluff). And considering that the cute Main Coon was only about a year old at the time, his tail must be considerably longer now.

Photo: Guinness Records

“It’s well over the world record now of 16.3 and showing no signs of stopping,” Will Powers told Love Meow. “The tail grows by about half an inch every month or so. It’s starting to look almost weird on him. People call him ‘featherduster’ or ‘Door draft blocker’ as the thing is so long and fluffy.”

Photo: Dr. Will Powers @starcats_detroit

“Most of the time when he’s holding the tail ‘upright’, it curls around at the tip and looks like a floofy question mark,” Cygnus’s human dad added.

Photo: Dr. Will Powers @starcats_detroit

But while having a living featherduster for a pet sounds great, it also poses some challenges for Will and Lauren. They have to be extra careful when closing doors around the house, as Cygnus tail may get caught by accident, and the feline also unknowingly dips his long tail into things from time to time, as it stretches so far from his body.

Photo: Dr. Will Powers @starcats_detroit

Interestingly, Cygnus’ brother, Arcturus, also bagged a Guinness record this year, for the “world’s tallest domestic cat”. The F2 Svannah reaches a stature of 48.4 cm (19.05 in) and weighs about 30 pounds. The two get along great together and love nothing more than to play together and cuddle.