Lil Bub, one of the internet's most famous cats, has died aged eight. The cat's owner, Mike Bridavsky, announced her death to millions of followers on social media on Monday. Lil Bub was best known for her unusual appearance - bulbous eyes and a protruding tongue. She was rescued as a feral kitten and was born with several disorders, including dwarfism. Lil Bub found online fame because of her unique appearance. Her feline dwarfism meant she stayed kitten-sized throughout her life. She was also polydactyl, with an extra toe on each paw, and had an underdeveloped jaw and no teeth which caused her tongue to always hang out. Mr Bridavsky originally adopted Lil Bub as the "runt" of a litter of kittens found by a friend inside a tool-shed in Indiana. In an interview, he described her "one of nature's happiest accidents" and insisted she lived a happy, healthy life despite her various health issues. He created a Tumblr blog for the cat in and she went viral after photographs of her ended up on the front page of discussion website Reddit.
Site Information Navigation
You may also be interested in:
Her photos were first posted to Tumblr in November , before being taken off after being featured on the social news website Reddit. Lil Bub was the runt of her litter born to a feral mother. The shortened lower jaw meant that, among other things, she could not retain her tongue within her mouth.
Site Index
Similar to Grumpy Cat , she was still an online institution, but one that got drowned out amid weightier, more heated discussions on social media. Remembering her now, and remembering her visit to the WIRED office six years ago, feels like a reversal of the days when the internet would pretty much rally around anything cute. Yet Lil Bub was different than Grumpy Cat. Aside from the fact that they both had medical conditions that made them particularly photogenic, Lil Bub tapped into something more caring and careful. Grumpy Cat, as the name suggests, helped fans channel their frustration, their ennui. Lil Bub represented loving something unconditionally, of protecting those less powerful. She was the unofficial mascot of never punching down.
She was 8. Her unexpected death on Sunday, resulting from a bone infection, led a vast collection of fans to mourn her as if she were their own, having spent years awwing at her face. With millions of followers on social media, and a mini-empire of commercial appearances elsewhere, Lil Bub was, to many, as familiar as the kitten next door. Cats have long been central to the lore of the internet, but Lil Bub, whose image first appeared on Reddit in , was among the first felines to stand out from the crowd and become a star. Another pioneer of the category, Grumpy Cat, died in May after complications from a urinary tract infection. They and other adorable animals brought rise to the now-ubiquitous trend of pet-dedicated social media accounts, a hobby to many but a bustling business to a select few. Lil Bub was the runt of a feral litter, and needed special care when she was taken in as a rescue, according to her biography. She suffered from feline dwarfism, never growing past her size as a kitten, and had a variety of other genetic anomalies, including disproportionately short limbs, an uneven jaw, and an extra toe on each of her paws. Her tongue drooped because her teeth never grew in. When she was 1 year old, she received a diagnosis of osteopetrosis, a rare bone condition that made her almost completely immobile.
