This weekend, visitors to the CFA/IAMS cat show at Madison Square Garden in New York City will be able to see Tabouli and Baba Ganoush, two kittens that have been cloned from a Bengal cat named Tahini.

The irony of this is that the CFA (Cat Fanciers’ Association) does not recognize the Bengal breed (one of the most popular in the United States), and so Tabouli and Baba Ganoush will probably be the first and last Bengals ever to appear at a CFA show.

The kittens were developed by the brilliantly-named Genetic Savings and Clone , who has a great picture on their home page.

It seems extremely hypocritical to us that the CFA pretends that Bengals don’t exist 99% of the time, but is willing to exploit these two cute cloned kittens for their news value. It would be entertaining to have their owner attempt to register them with the CFA at the show, with the world’s media watching. And it would be instructive to see how a cloned cat’s pedigree would read in any case!