When Stephy Hirst of Melbourne, Australia, first picked up her new kitten Omar, he wasn’t anything spectacular size-wise.
Little did she know, however, that he would soon become a top contender for the Guinness World Record title of World’s Longest Cat.
“We were expecting a 9 kilo [19 pound] cat,” Hirst told the Maroondah Leader (via Global News).
“He got to that [length] before he was one year old, and that’s when we sort of realized that he’s not nearly done yet.”
Omar measures a whopping 120 cm (47 inches) now that he is full-grown and weighs more than 30 pounds!
Hirst says Omar wakes up at about 5 a.m. on a typical day. He then eats for breakfast a couple of cups of dry cat food, relaxes around the house, and goes out to play in the yard. The lengthy kitty stretches out on the trampoline after his frequent play session for a nap, before gorging on a delicious feast of raw kangaroo meat.
“It’s the only meat we could find that he actually wants to eat,” Hirst said.
This big guy, however, isn’t able to sleep in the bed anymore. “He does take up a bit too much room… so he gets locked out of the bedroom at night,” Hirst said.
When one of his pictures was posted on the popular Cats of Instagram account, Omar became an instant hit— and that’s when Guinness World Records reached out to Hirst requesting his measurements.
“All of our friends want to come over and see our cat,” Hirst told the BBC. “The say ‘is that Photoshopped?’ or ‘that can’t be real’ and then they see him in the flesh.”
In order to be ranked as the World’s Longest Cat, Omar will have to be larger than the current title-holder, another Maine Coon named Ludo from Wakefield, Yorkshire. If the reported measurements are accurate, Ludo is 118.33 cm (or 46.5 inches) long — making Omar about half an inch longer.
