Science Is Finally Going to Solve the Mystery Behind Internet Sensation Lil' Bub

It's time to tackle the internet cat sensation.

By Seija Rankin May 22, 2015 9:55 PMTags
Robert De Niro, Lil Bub CatRob Kim/Getty Images

Behold Lil' Bub, a magical, mystical creature. On one level, she is but a regular Internet cat sensation. But if you look deeper, she is a beautiful anomaly. (Can you tell we're really into Bub?)

Lillian Bubbles, casually known as Bub, is a cat born with a birth defect that makes her permanently dwarfed, perennially appearing as a teeny, tiny, cuddly kitten. She has short (and we mean short) legs, bulging eyes, a tongue that sticks out and a casual 22 toes. She also has almost one million Instagram followers and two million Facebook fans. But it's easy to see why.

Up until now it was widely agreed upon amongst Internet cat experts (read: us) that while Bub was the cutest kitty on the interwebs, she was also a great, great mystery. Just how did she achieve permanent kittenhood? Well, some brave scientists decided to find out.

A group of molecular biologists were intrigued by Bub's unique features, and decided to approach her owner about mapping her genome sequence. Naturally he said yes, and the scientists launched a crowdfunding campaign to raise the money for the experiment. They've reached their goal of $6,500, but are now looking to raise more money to take the project even further. 

So just what will they do to Lil' Bub? She won't be subjected to any scary MRIs or other nonsense, but they will need to extract a kitty blood sample, according to the crowdfunding description. From that they'll extract and analyze her DNA to look for any mutations that may be causing her appearance. Then they'll share their findings with the world and the mystery will finally be solved! They also hope to raise awareness about genetic testing for rare diseases.

Now the only thing left to do is figure out how to explain this to Bub.