HISTORY AND ORIGIN
Devon Rex cats are a natural mutation. Its origin dates back to the late 1950s in Devonshire, England, where Miss Berly Cox realized that her straight hair cat had given birth to a curly-haired kitten. Miss Cox guessed that the kitty’s father was a stray cat from the tin mine near the town.
Knowing about the effort to preserve the curly coat gene of the Cornish Rex cat, Miss Cox offered her kitten Kirlee to help to maintain the breed. But, during this process, the breeders discovered that Kirlee had a different wavy hair gene than the Cornish Rex, and that is how the Devon Rex breed appeared.
The breed first came to the United States in the late 1960s. Today all Devon Rex cats have their lineage traced back to Kirlee.