CC (CopyCat)

CC — short for "CopyCat" (and sometimes "Carbon Copy") — was the first cat, and one of the first pets of any kind, ever to be successfully cloned. She was born on 22 December 2001 at Texas A&M University, created from cells taken from a calico-and-white donor cat named Rainbow using the same somatic-cell nuclear transfer technique that produced Dolly the sheep. CC's birth made headlines around the world and raised fascinating scientific questions — most strikingly, that although she was a genetic copy of Rainbow, her coat pattern looked quite different. This is because the patches of orange and black in tortoiseshell and calico cats are determined not by genes alone but by random X-chromosome inactivation in the womb, so even a perfect clone is never a visual duplicate. CC went on to live a completely ordinary, healthy life, had three kittens of her own the natural way, and lived to the age of eighteen — reassuring evidence that a cloned cat could enjoy a normal lifespan. She died in 2020, having spent her whole life as a beloved pet of one of the scientists who helped create her.