Record Breaker
Tarawood Antigone
1970
The Burmese cat who delivered the largest litter of kittens ever recorded — nineteen in one go.
- Owner
- Valerie Gane
- Years
- 1970
- Known for
- Record Breaker
Tarawood Antigone was a brown Burmese cat from Oxfordshire, England, who on 7 August 1970 gave birth to the largest litter of domestic kittens ever recorded: an incredible nineteen in a single litter.
Four of the kittens were sadly stillborn, but fifteen survived — itself a record for live births in one litter. The enormous litter, delivered with veterinary help by caesarean section, astonished her owner Valerie Gane and quickly earned a place in the Guinness World Records that has never been beaten.
A typical cat litter numbers just four to six kittens, so Tarawood Antigone's brood was truly exceptional. Interestingly, the surviving kittens were an unusually male-heavy group. More than half a century on, her extraordinary feat still stands as the benchmark for feline fertility.