They say cats have nine lives. This one, it seems, has 10.

Garlic, a British shorthair, has been cloned after his Chinese owner Huang Yu decided he could not face life without the friendly feline.

The new version was born in Beijing seven months after the old one died and is the first cat cloned in China, the AFP news agency reports.

But such pet love doesn't come cheap, it seems. The operation - carried out by per cloning firm Sinogenein June - set Mr Yu back 250,000 yuan (£24,405)

The 23-year-old said: “When Garlic died, I was very sad. I couldn't face the facts because it was a sudden death.

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"I blame myself for not taking him to the hospital in time, which led to his death."

He added the "similarity between the two cats is more than 90 per cent".

Mi Jidong, chief executive of Sinogene - which has previously cloned some 40 pet dogs - said: “Whatever the origin of pets, owners will see them as part of the family. Pet cloning meets the emotional needs of young generations."

Pet cloning is illegal in many countries but approved in countries including China and the US, where singer Barbra Streisand famously had her dog cloned.

The first cloned cat, CC, was born in 2001.