The Meowl, also known as the Cat Owl or Owl Cat, was originally created in 2013 by a Chinese Weibo user named zhumaokele. It is a Photoshop edit that combines a cat's head with an owl's body, specifically using the face of a viral Chinese cat called Melonpi and the body of a barn owl. The image gained popularity on the internet through the 2010s and saw a resurgence in 2024 and 2025 on platforms like TikTok and Twitter. Despite some misconceptions, Meowl was not AI-generated initially; it was manually created before AI image generation tools became widespread. The meme's origin traces back to a handcrafted digital edit shared in 2013, making that year its official "creation" date.