Scientists studied 8,000 cats to determine which breeds live the longest, and it could help you become a better pet owner

Learning more about the different breeds will allow cat owners “to predict the future life expectancy for their cats based on novel scientific methods and the power of big data,” said study co-author and veterinarian Dan O’Neill in a statement.

The researchers found Burmese and Birmans live the longest, with an average of 14 years, about two years longer than the average cat. But why these breeds outlive their peers isn’t clear.

Predicting the life expectancy of cats

For this recent study, researchers from London’s Royal Veterinary College (RVC) and the National Chung Hsing University in Taiwan looked at the ages of 7,936 cats who died between 2019 and 2021.

Over 7,000 of the cats in the study were mixed breeds. Most of the other 11 breeds included breeds like British cats, Maine Coons, Ragdolls, and Persians.

Typically, cats’ life expectancies ranged from about 9 to 14 years, the researchers found.

For example, siamese and mixed-breed cats’ life expectancies were over 11.5 years, whereas others — Norwegian Forest, Maine Coon, Russian, and British — were over 9.5 years.

Here’s a table of what the researchers found:

*Some breeds, like Sphynx cats, may not have had enough data to accurately reflect lifespans, said Leslie Lyons, who studies domestic cat genetics at the University of Missouri.

While the researchers’ findings did indicate Burmese and Birmans lived longest, almost every breed had at least one cat that lived to be over 20 years old.

Limitations with the data

One potential issue with some of the data is that it can be tricky for people to know their cats’ breeds, Lyons said.

“Some of these cats listed as a particular breed might not really be what we would call a pedigreed breed,” she said. An owner may assume their shelter cat with silvery fur is a Russian Blue, for example, when it’s actually a mixed breed.

Unlike dogs — some of which have been used for hundreds of years to hunt, corral sheep, or pull sleds — cats were often bred for aesthetic reasons rather than personality or athleticism.

That’s why breed differences aren’t as dramatic in cats as they are in dogs and might not impact cats’ health in the same way.

It’s not like comparing a Doberman to a Pekingese. That’s because cats’ aesthetic traits are genetically less complex than dogs’ behavioral and functional ones, Lyons said.

However, these breed preferences can still have unintended consequences, like Persian cats’ short noses, which can cause breathing difficulties.

How long a cat lives depends on plenty of factors

In addition to breed, the study looked at a number of factors, like sex, weight, and whether the cat was spayed or neutered. Females and fixed cats both tended to live a bit longer.

Lyons sees this study as a jumping-off point for further investigations into factors that impact life expectancies like time spent indoors or outdoors, which the study didn’t account for.

Car accidents, parasites, and fights with other felines are just a few of the dangers for cats who venture outside. As a result, some research suggests outdoor cats have an average lifespan of only two to five years.

The authors, who published their study in the peer-reviewed “Journal of Feline Medicine and Surgery,” said further research is needed into the causes of death in companion cats, including in the Sphynx breed.