Hemingway's Six-Toed Cats: The 'Snowballs' of Key West

In 1935, Ernest Hemingway was living on the island of Key West, Florida. One day, a sea captain friend gave him a white polydactyl cat named Snowball. Among North Atlantic sailors, six-toed cats were considered lucky — the extra digits made them steadier on rolling decks. Hemingway fell in love with the cat and let her roam the garden freely. She went on to produce a long line of descendants, almost all of them polydactyl. Today, the Ernest Hemingway Home and Museum is home to more than sixty cats, roughly half of them six-toed. Visitors no longer come only to see Hemingway's writing — they come to see the cats he left behind.