APPEARANCE
The Somali is known as the ‘smiling cat’ and is a beautifully balanced animal of medium build and foreign type with an alert expression.
A combination of dramatically coloured fur, striking facial markings, full bushy tail, and breeches gives the Somali a captivating ‘little fox’ look.The head is broad with gently rounded contours and good width between the ears, which are broad at the base and large.They are well-cupped with tufts at the tips and furnishings on the inner edges.
The eyes are large and almond-shaped and set obliquely; the colour can be amber, hazel, or green, but the deeper the colour the better.
An elegant neck leads to a firm, muscular, medium-sized body with a level back.The legs are long, and the paws oval with tufts between the toes on the long-hair variety.
The coat of the long-hair is soft and fine, lying flat along the spine and shorter over the shoulders. It should also have a ruff around the neck and fluffy breeches on the back legs, but these may not be apparent on a kitten.
In the short-hair variety, the coat is medium length, fine, and dense but close lying, with no ruff, toe tufts, or breeches.The tail in the long-hair is long and well furnished, broad at the base and tapering slightly towards the tip — very like that of a fox. In the short-hair, it should be long, thick at the base, and taper slightly to a rounded tip.
Like its cousin the Abyssinian, the coat pattern is ‘ticked’ with bands of colour on each hair.The roots of the fur should be the colour of the base hair and the final band must be the ticking colour. Ear tips and tufts, facial markings, top and tip of tail, toe tufts, and heels are the same colour as the ticking, and there should be darker shading along the spine and top of the tail.The chest, belly, under tail, inside of legs, and breeches are the colour of the unmarked base hair.