Lithium Cat
English name: celli
Scientific name: Leptailurus celli
The lithium cat is a new felid of the serval genus that evolved in the middle of the twenty-first century, though some experts deny that it is a naturally evolved animal. Although in appearance it closely resembles a Siamese cat, with soft short fur and chocolate-colored spots or cap markings, by bloodline it is closer to the serval. Its head is small, its muzzle relatively long, and it has a pair of very large ears set high and close together. The lithium cat’s body length ranges from 42 to 71 cm. Its limbs are long and slender, and near the soles of its feet are faint copper-colored spots. Its tail is short, only 10 cm long.
Lithium cats are distributed across the Northern Hemisphere along the Tropic of Cancer as their axis. The farther one moves away from 23 degrees north latitude, the more sharply their numbers decline. They cannot survive south of the equator, for reasons not yet understood, though analysis suggests this may be related to biological magnetic fields. Lithium cats primarily live in human settlements such as cities, towns, or large industrial and mining zones, where they can use their long limbs and speeds of up to 90 km/h to move through forests of reinforced concrete. Their great ears can receive variable microwave signals from 0.01 GHz to 40 GHz. Beneath the copper-colored spots on the soles are glands that secrete a mucus capable of insulating currents below 380 volts. The lithium cat is named for its fondness for eating lithium batteries. The villi of its stomach form a marvelous biological protective circuit that can effectively break down the spiral-wound structure of lithium batteries, destroy the polyethylene membrane separating positive and negative electrodes, and absorb lithium ions, cobalt dioxide, and the organic electrolyte solution. The droppings of lithium cats are called lithium-cat beans and are advanced raw material for bioengineering, ready for direct collection and use.
In fact, when food is scarce, lithium cats will also consume other kinds of spent batteries. Their digestive system resembles the early human “wet-process” treatment for used batteries. In addition to a stomach that secretes highly acidic gastric fluid, they possess a “second stomach” that secretes a highly alkaline solution, effectively refining iron, cadmium, carbon rods, copper, caps, zinc casing, and various residues from inside the battery. Lithium cats, however, are highly sensitive to mercury toxicity. Once too much mercury accumulates in the body, they die easily. Because wild lithium cats lack effective means of preventing mercury poisoning, they generally survive only seven to eight years. Domesticated and farmed lithium cats can live more than fifteen years.
Lithium cats have a gestation period of two months and produce three to four young in each litter. Kittens are weaned at two to four months. The mother generally raises them alone, and after reaching sexual maturity at thirteen to fifteen months, lithium cats live independently.
[Figure 1: Early lithium cat]
Note: among citizen scientists, the official scientific-journal claim that “lithium cats arose through natural evolution” is generally not accepted. [Figure 1] shows the popularly recognized ancestor of the lithium cat, said to have been named Dong Xiaohua, female, and to have lived roughly between 2003 and 2024. Around 2013, she was supposedly dissected and modified by the first citizen-biologist robot, Tao Bote, becoming the progenitor of the lithium cat. Interestingly, the legendary ancestor of the modern paper cat, which feeds on books, newspapers, and electronic paper, is also said to have been Dong Xiaohua.