See this cat? Awww, come here kitty. Wait, something is wrong with this kitty—it has six toes! Gross! But this deformity is also proof that this cat, which lives on the grounds of the Hemingway House in Key West is descended from Ernest’s original six-toed cat. Or rather, that’s what the owners of the Hemingway House would like you to think. A.N. Devers explains presence of these cats, often mislabeled as Hemingway’s, in her Roundtable essay “House Hunters.”

“The cat myth began with Bernice Dickson, who bought the Hemingway house in 1964 and opened the estate as a tourist attraction. At some point she started breeding and selling six-toed cats, even sending them through the mail, and claiming, ‘they are a special Asiatic breed that Mr. Hemingway had when he was here.’”