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Is My Cat a Maine Coon? Breed Traits Checklist
Tick the traits you can see and compare your cat with the Cat Fanciers’ Association breed standard.
Maine Coons mature slowly, so this changes how to read the count.
Tap the ones that match. Leave blank what you are unsure about.
Pick your cat’s age group, tick the traits you can see and press Calculate. You get a count out of 10 traits from the Cat Fanciers’ Association breed standard.
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- CFA breed standard
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A Maine Coon, by the Cat Fanciers’ Association standard, has a head slightly longer than wide with a square muzzle, large tufted ears, large wide-set oval eyes, a muscular broad-chested body, a long tail and a heavy shaggy coat. The checklist above turns those into ten things you can see. No checklist, and no photo, can confirm a breed: registration papers from the parents can. The CFA breed page has the full standard.
The CFA Maine Coon standard, feature by feature
These are the descriptions the checklist uses, in the order the standard lists them.
| Feature | What the CFA standard says |
|---|---|
| Head shape | Medium in width, slightly longer than wide |
| Muzzle and chin | Visibly square, medium in length, blunt ended in profile |
| Profile | A slight concavity when viewed from the side |
| Ears | Large, well-tufted, wide at the base, tapering to look pointed |
| Eyes | Large, expressive, wide set, open oval |
| Neck | Medium long |
| Body | Muscular, broad-chested, size medium to large |
| Legs and feet | Substantial, wide set, medium length, in proportion to the body |
| Tail | Long, wide at the base and tapering, with long flowing fur |
| Coat | Shorter on the shoulders, longer on the stomach and britches |
How the standard weighs each part
CFA judges the breed on a 100-point scale. Head and body are 30 points each, so shape counts for more than any single coat or color detail.
| CFA point scale | Points |
|---|---|
| Head (shape 15, ears 10, eyes 5) | 30 |
| Body (shape 15, neck 5, legs and feet 5, tail 5) | 30 |
| Coat | 20 |
| Color | 15 |
| Balance | 5 |
What size can and cannot tell you
The CFA page says the Maine Coon is “the largest of all pedigreed cats”, that it is not unusual for a mature male to reach or exceed 20 pounds with females usually smaller, and that the breed is slow-maturing and can take up to three years to reach full growth. Size is therefore a weak test for a kitten or a young cat. The standard describes the body as “medium to large” and asks for balance with “no part of the cat being exaggerated”, so a very large cat is not automatically a better match. For what owners report at each age, see the Maine Coon growth chart.
Why a checklist and not a photo scan
A photo tool guesses from a picture. This checklist asks you to look at the features the standard actually lists, so you can see why you got the result, and it makes no claim about parentage. If you want to know whether a cat is a Maine Coon mix, our guide to telling if your cat is a Maine Coon mix and the list of mixed breed Maine Coon cats go further.
Questions
How can I tell if my cat is a Maine Coon?
Compare the features the CFA standard lists: a head slightly longer than wide with a square muzzle, large tufted ears, large wide-set oval eyes, a muscular broad-chested body, a long tail and a heavy shaggy coat. Only registration papers on the parents confirm the breed.
Is a big cat a Maine Coon?
Not necessarily. Many cats are large, and Maine Coons take up to three years to reach full growth according to the CFA, so size on its own tells you little, especially in a young cat.
Can a kitten be judged?
Only loosely. The CFA standard says allowance should be made for slow maturation, so ears, coat and body may not look typical until the cat is older.
Do ear tufts prove a Maine Coon?
No single feature proves it. The standard asks for large, well-tufted ears that are wide at the base, but it is the whole set of features, plus papers, that counts.
More cat calculators
Related guides
- How to tell if your cat is a Maine Coon mix
- Mixed breed Maine Coon cats
- Maine Coon vs Ragdoll
- How big do Maine Coon cats get
Sources
- Cat Fanciers’ Association, Maine Coon breed page and breed standard (point scale, head, body, coat, size and maturity), read 27 October 2026.
This checklist is informal. It compares what you can see with a written breed standard and does not identify a breed or a parentage.