Cute Cats
First we notice that the 18 items seem to be grouped into 3 categories of 6 items each, distinguished by the shapes of their patterns. Each category’s images also contain a feature distinct from the rest. They are:
| Pattern feature | Image feature |
|---|---|
| Blanks with no asterisks | Contains a number from 1 to 6 |
| Blanks with one asterisk | Not a cute cat |
| Blanks with three asterisks | Nothing special |
Picking out some of the more obvious photos, we can try to determine the rules for filling in the various patterns. For example, we have some caterpillars and a catfish, which might have us guess that the "non-cats" all begin with CAT. Or, we might see that ethernet cable fits the pattern for that photo and that the 3 letters indicated by the asterisks are TCA, suspiciously a permutation of CAT. The category with no asterisks may be harder to solve with just one example, but taking fan or boba and following the CAT theme eventually reveals a simple substitution rule, yielding CATAN and BOBCAT respectively.
The list as presented is sorted first by length and then alphabetically, which can also help towards solving some of the trickier clues.
Leftover information is used for indexing and/or ordering, as follows:
| Pattern | Rule | Extraction | Ordering |
|---|---|---|---|
| Blanks with no asterisks | Substitute one letter for CAT to form another word | Extract substituted letter | Unique number from 1 to 6 provided in photo |
| Blanks with one asterisk | Name of photographed animal | Extract asterisk | Number of animals is a unique number from 1 to 6 |
| Blanks with three asterisks | Photographic clue for a word or phrase containing a unique permutation of CAT in asterisks | First letter | Lexicographic ordering of CAT permutation |
The full list of clues, in order within each group, is:
| Image | Pattern | Clue | Extract | Cat credit (not part of the puzzle) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
 | _____*_ | CATFISH | S | n/a |
 | ___*_____ | CATAHOULA | A | n/a |
 | ____*___ | CATOCALA | C | n/a |
 | ____*______ | CATERPILLAR | R | n/a |
 | _____* | CATTLE | E | n/a |
 | ________* | CATHARTID | D | n/a |
 | _____ | FAN to CATAN | F | Kaymak (Mona Wang) |
 | ______ | BOBA to BOBCAT | A | Honey (Mona Wang) |
 | ______ | LOME to LOCATE | M | Boots (Andrew He) |
 | ________ | ICHING to CATCHING | I | Vin (Cameron Montag) |
 | ______ | LION to CATION | L | Hummer (Nathan Wong) |
 | ________ | PLAYER to PLACATER | Y | Vasya (Olga Vinogradova) |
 | ______ ____***__ | LORENZ ATTRACTOR | L | Stray from 猴硐貓村 (photo by Nathan) |
 | _____***_ | OVERWATCH | O | Boots (Andrew He) |
 | _______***_ | CERTIFICATE | C | Ducya (Olga Vinogradova) |
 | ______** *__ | ABSTRACT ART | A | Hummer (Nathan Wong) |
 | ____ _***_ | LAMP STACK | L | Curly (Nathan Wong) |
 | _______* **___ | ETHERNET CABLE | E | Vasya (Olga Vinogradova) |
We get, in some order, the words SACRED, FAMILY, and LOCALE. The “sacred family,” a church better known as the Sagrada Familia, is a notable landmark located in the CATALONIA region of Spain. Appropriately, Catalonia also begins with CAT.
Authors' Notes
Meow!
Thanks again to Andrew, Cameron, Mona, Nathan, and Olga for allowing their cats to be our models!