The Chausie might come closest to looking like the king of the jungle, but one of its ancestors might come closer to being a regal feline. Petful editor in chief Kristine Lacoste notes that the Abyssinian resembles "a small mountain lion." And unlike the Chausie, which has only existed since the late 20th century, per PetGuide.com, the Abyssinian didn't result from humans playing god with two distinct breeds of cat. On the contrary, the Abyssinian was once thought to have descended from a god that humans worshiped.

Britannica explains that the Abyssinian likely originated in ancient Egypt and is the breed that most closely resembles the sacred cats of the past. Per the Ancient History Encyclopedia, the goddess of cats was Bastet, which appropriately enough, was depicted as a woman with the head of a lioness. If the Abyssinian was the spiritual descendant of Bastet, then the argument could be made that it has the soul of a lion, if not the body. The other half of the Chausie hybrid, Jungle Cat, may have been domesticated in ancient Egypt, where the cats were also mummified. In that sense, the Abyssinian and Jungle Cat may have been a match made in cat heaven, making the Chausie a product of divine intervention.

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