Meowl — Cat-owl hybrid with kitten face and owl body perched on a branch in front of a blurry green field

Meowl

2013photoshopresurgent

Published November 13, 2026

Meowl, also called Cat Owl or Owl Cat, started as a 2013 Photoshop hybrid on Weibo pairing the face of viral Chinese cat Melonpi with a stock barn owl's body on a branch1. Western audiences found the image via a Reddit crosspost in 2013 and a 2016 9GAG repost captioned 'MEOWLS,' then rediscovered it a decade later. By 2025, TikTok creators had turned the hybrid into a lip-sync music video format with millions of likes.

photoshop memes cats chinese origin memes delayed virality memes animal memes

Overview

Meowl posts use the same base composition, an owl's fluffy body on a branch with a cat's face Photoshopped onto the head1. The body comes from a stock barn owl photo formerly hosted on SuperStock, and editors swap the cat face, add Impact captions, or animate the mouth for audio edits5. Humor leans into the creature's unblinking stare, which reads as adorable or cursed depending on the caption.

Captions often cover confessional dating lines, bird-versus-cat identity gags, or deadpan appreciation of Meowls as a fictional species8. Popular 2025 edits layer sped-up music over an animated mouth, turning the still into a short music video format.

Origin & Background

Platform
Weibo (source creation) / TikTok (viral spread)
Creator
zhumaokele
Date
2013

Weibo user zhumaokele posted the original cat-owl hybrids on April 28, 2013, gathering over 1,700 shares across the following twelve years1. One image placed the face of Melonpi, a Chinese cat profiled by Sankaku Complex in 2012 as a candidate for China's cutest cat, onto a stock barn owl standing on a branch2. The owl body came from a photo once hosted on SuperStock5.

How It Spread

Redditor electrical_outlet brought the hybrids to Western audiences on May 29, 2013, with a four-panel collage posted to r/funny, which drew over 2,000 upvotes3. On March 3, 2016, the 9GAGGER account reposted the collage on 9GAG under an Impact caption reading 'MEOWLS,' giving the format its lasting name and over 25,000 upvotes4. Cheezburger ran a listicle gathering several hybrids that same year6.

The image stayed mostly dormant until TikTok revived it in 2024. On February 26, @maheadfullofzig posted a slow fade-in caption edit reading 'When she say she's going to touch u but you low key want that,' which collected over 770,000 likes8. @itrappingit posted a mock defensive argument edit on August 28 for roughly 328,800 likes9. YouTuber AZALI followed on October 22 with a short eerie music piece titled 'cat owl' that gathered over 95,100 views7. TikToker @clo_rad1's November 26 slideshow captioned 'When you can't decide to be a bird or a cat so you just wing it' collected roughly 156,400 likes10.

On August 17, 2025, @nullz.22 animated a Meowl's mouth lip-syncing a sped-up cover of 'New Soul' by David Donatien and Yael Naim for over 1.2 million likes in a month11.

Timeline

2025-08-17

TikToker @nullz.22 animates a Meowl lip-syncing a sped-up cover of 'New Soul,' earning over 1.2 million likes in a month.

How to Use This Meme

Creators typically overlay Impact font captions or fade-in text on the Meowl image. Common conventions include confessional dating captions, puns on being half-bird and half-cat, or deadpan appreciation posts about adopting a Meowl. More recent edits animate the mouth and layer sped-up songs over the still image11.

Frequently Asked Questions