The domestication of cats is a fascinating evolutionary journey, transforming them from solitary, fearful wildcats into the beloved companions of today, a process largely driven by cats themselves and influenced by human agricultural development and later, human aesthetic preferences.
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How did these deadly savanna killers turn into this?
In the grasslands of Africa and Asia these wildcats are feared. Unmatched
stalking skills. Camouflage to sneak up on any prey. Fangs and claws sharp enough
to shred anything in their path. And yet, as they got closer to us,
their behaviour changed a little bit, but their appearance changed a lot.
What turned these rugged murderous cuties into cuddly murderous cuties?
This is the mystery of domestication of the cat.
Hi I’m Danielle Dufault, your resident cat lady, and you’re watching Animalogic.As hard
as it is to imagine, a world with cats as we know them is a relatively new invention.
The construction of the pyramids is as close in time to us as it is to
the appearance of the first domestic cat. In evolutionary terms, that’s the blink of an eye!
The domestic cat’s ancestors were territorial hunters that
were terrified of people. So what changed to make us open up our homes
to these solitary hunters and for them to walk in that door?.
The story begins with our main character, the African Wildcat,
or Felis Silvestris Lybica, if you want to be formal.
That’s where Sylvester the Cat got his name.
They’re a bit taller, leggier, and definitely more athletic-looking than most domestic cats,
but the resemblance is hard to miss. You’ll find them roaming savannas and
grasslands across Africa, stretching into the Middle East, and into parts of western Asia.
This little predator is to housecats what the wolf is to our modern-day dogs.
Like most felines, the African Wildcat lives a solitary life, roaming and hunting on their own,
and tolerating other wildcats just to make more wildcats. They eat mostly rodents and birds,
but if the stars align they can take down antelope fawns.
For a long time, the cat domestication story seemed very straight forward – cats were
domesticated by the Egyptians, around 3600 years ago, just a couple centuries before King Tut.
That’s where we see the paintings, the statues,
the mummies, their absolute stan-level obsession with all things kitty cat.
But newer research suggests that wasn’t the origin story at all!
In 2004, archaeologists uncovered a grave in Cyprus,
where a human was buried alongside a cat around a whooping 9600 years ago.
That, along with genetic evidence, showed that cats had cozied up to
humans thousands of years earlier than we thought, likely in the Fertile Crescent,
just a boat ride away from the island — long before Egyptian art made them famous.
It turns out that all of these traits of the African wildcat — their hunting skills,
their range, and their opportunistic style — put them in the perfect position to bump
into our other main character: a little friend we like to call ‘humankind’.
This was at the dawn of a pretty important landmark of our own story.
10,000 years ago, in the very same neighbourhood
where African Wildcat lives humans were inventing farming.
We were shifting away from the hunter/gatherer lifestyle,
building settlements, and starting to grow crops like wheat and barley, and eventually livestock
too. With these new settlements humans didn’t have to do as much running around.
That meant surpluses of grain — and where there’s grain, there’s rodents. For wildcats,
it must have felt like winning the lottery. Their weird bald ape
neighbours were bringing them an unlimited amount of furry treats for them to munch on.
A cat’s dinner in the Fertile Crescent came in the form of some pet-shop-style cuties:
mice, gerbils, hamsters, and one of my favourites, the jerboa.
Sure, I see an adorable kangaroo-bunny-mouse hybrid… but the African wildcat just saw an easy,
bouncy snack. Over time, the cats that were less scared of humans thrived, getting more food,
and raising more kittens. In a nutshell, that’s how wild cats turned into house cats.
But there’s a bit of a jump between wild cats living among humans,
and then physically changing into the domestic kitties we know and love.
In terms of domestication, the route the cats took is pretty wild.
Domestication is more than taming wild animals. It’s also about selecting the traits we want them
to pass on to their babies, and breeding them to make ever more ideal kitties. The ancestors of
most domesticated animals lived in herds or packs with clear dominance hierarchies. Humans could
step in, feed them, reward the friendliest ones, and gradually steer the whole group.
That’s how wolves became dogs: humans kept the friendlier,
more docile wolves close, making them reproduce with each other,
and by doing that they created a whole new species. But cats did it themselves.
VO People weren’t deciding which cats
got to mate or where they lived. The ancestors of domestic house cats like my buddy Nebs here,
probably chose to live among humans because it worked in their favour and theirs alone.
Basically the cat version of your worst date: all take and no give. They don’t even ask questions?
Early domesticated cats were likely like the feral farm cats of today, mostly doing their own thing.
Humans liked them for their mice hunting skills,
which made the relationship at least somewhat mutually beneficial.
You know what they say, the enemy of my enemy is a wild animal that will slowly
turn into my best friend but will bite and scratch me every once in a while.
But there’s another factor: cuteness. I mean come on, look at this.
Scientists call it “neoteny”, and it’s adorable..
It means keeping baby-like features into adulthood. Cats with round eyes, compact noses
and playful movements hit our caregiving instincts just like a human baby would, sometimes even more.
These traits aren’t unique to domestic animals,
but humans tend to love them, and that gives cats a real advantage.
Compared to their wild relatives, these housecats look like babies for much longer.
It’s more than just their cute kitten-like features that domestic cats exploited.
Some of their behaviours play the same card, like meowing.
Did you know that adult wildcats don’t meow? It's a strictly kitten
thing. Domestic cats just kept meowing, and turned it on us — basically baby talk turned
into a negotiation tool. And they only do it to us, not other cats.
They even evolved to meow in the same frequencies as human babies cry. They
literally hacked into our brains to make our parental instincts kick so we take care of them.
And they do it… a lot!
Yes, Nebs, I know you’re watching this. I‘ll be home with your treats soon!
Purring started as a nursing sound too, and even kneading,
that “making biscuits” motion began as a kitten's behaviour to make their moms
feed them milk. It’s both a leftover instinct and a surprisingly effective spa treatment.
Over time, these semi-domesticated weirdo roommates followed humans as
they traveled and traded across the Middle East,
eventually arriving in ancient Egypt — where they reached legendary status.
In the Fertile Crescent, we mostly understand that cats and humans lived alongside each other,
but it's the art from the time they hit Egypt around 3500 years ago that
shows humans, from temple priests to royalty, had gone full-on cat lady.
But not only were they cuddly companions. In Egypt they were elevated to deities,
like Bastet, the goddess of cats, daughter of Ra.
It’s actually kind of a really cool tattoo reserved for the
most hardcore cat lovers. Let me know in the comments if you have a Bastet tat!
Her yin and yang energy — gentle, playful cat by day,
fierce protector by night — made Bastet one of the most revered deities in Egyptian religion.
Entire temples were built in her honor, and families kept cats as a way to connect with
her spirit. Harming a cat was even considered a crime against the gods. But there was a darker
side to this devotion: Mass amounts of cat mummies have been found by archaeologists,
measured by the ton. Some of these cats were sacrificed in religious rituals.
But, the sheer volume of cat mummies is morbid proof that for the first time,
humans were keeping tons of house cats and they were thriving… Until they got to go meet Ra.
You’re probably picturing the majestic cats in Egypt as mythical-looking:
dramatically spotted, winged eyeliner, or maybe even hairless like the “sphynx”
cat of today. But we here at Animalogic are committed to debunking long-held cat myths!
And kinda disappointingly, but in some ways relatable,
genetic evidence suggests that the venerated cats of Egypt were probably classic striped
tabbies – not a lot different from the average alley cat of today.
So when did cats start developing the variety
of colours and patterns we see today? The answer is, weirdly, very recently.
After the Egyptians worshiped the house cat around 3500 years ago, felines continued to
spread across the world. In the Far East, around the 14th century, one of the earliest recognizable
breeds began to emerge: the Siamese. Humans actually had no hand in their development.
Instead, their unique appearance developed through a process called “genetic drift”.
It’s when a small, isolated population develops random new traits simply by chance.
Siamese cats are actually partial albinos with heat sensitive coloration. They are born white,
but as they grow older their cooler extremities develop darker fur,
forming those signature points.
Their almond-shaped blue eyes, slender bodies, and short, fine coats also emerged naturally.
In the Far East, there are no local wildcats to interbreed with and keep
them looking like vintage cats. So domestic cats went their own way,
gradually accumulating the unique coats and patterns we recognize today.
Are you sensing a theme here? Cats like to do everything themselves. But if we know humans,
we know that they can never keep their noses out of anything for too long,
so of course they had to get in there and make their own mark on our feline companions.
In the early 1800s artists and naturalists like Harrison Weir were documenting cats and noted
that breeders were selecting for looks rather than hunting skills or usefulness. It was during
the 19th century, mostly in the British Isles, that humans pounced on the trend.
So let's lace up our corsets, tip our bowler hats, and take an imaginary ride to the Crystal Palace
in London, 1871, to witness the very first cat show showcasing human-created breeds.
Around 170 cats were entered, some from pedigree breeds but
also some regular housecats. They were judged both on looks and personality.
The winner for best in show was a Blue Persian, owned by a Mrs. H.B. Veley,
but for some reason nobody recorded their name. A bit sad. No wonder it was blue.
Since then, cat breeding has mostly been about aesthetics: hair length,
color, pattern, or even one with a whole body wax. But it's important to remember
that beyond differences in fur and coat genes, there’s barely any genetic variance.
Most cats could practically slip into a wildcat colony and nobody would bat an eye — except,
of course, for the occasional weird meow when they spot a bipedal human…
or maybe to politely request a sweater for the hairless one.
And unfortunately many domestic cats do that.
Domestic cats harm wildlife not only by killing it but also by mating with it.
This is when domestic cats mate with wildcats, and make them lose some of the adaptations they
need for survival in the wild. The poster child of this is the Scottish wildcat. Once abundant,
it’s now functionally extinct in pure form, with only about 100 individuals left. Most wildcats
there are now hybrids, which means millenia of evolution was erased in just a few hundred years.
Dogs, on the other hand, are a completely different story. Bred
for thousands of years to herd, hunt, pull sleds,
and even rescue humans, they now come in wildly different shapes and sizes.
A tiny Chihuahua and a massive Saint Bernard might both be “dogs,” but functionally, they
couldn’t be further apart. Dogs are engineered for function in all shapes and sizes, but cats?
They’re still basically the exact same stealthy,
silent hunters their ancestors were, just with a makeover.
In the last 20-ish years, advances in artificial insemination and in vitro
fertilization have allowed breeders to cross domestic cats with wild species,
producing hybrids like the tuft-eared Caracat and the leopard-spotted Bengal. Nebs is a bengal
Bengals are mixes of domestic cats with Asian Leopard cats. They’re beautiful but if you’re
thinking about adopting a cat, consider a regular cat from your local shelter.
One of the keys to the cat’s success is that even though they’re cuddly pets,
they’re also perfectly able to catch prey on their own. This
unfortunately is a huge problem in areas where wildcats aren’t native.
Domestic cats in urban areas eat a lot of birds. In North America alone,
cats are estimated to kill 2.5 billion birds every year. That means that over two thirds of
all bird deaths in the region are caused by cats. On top of that, they kill over 10 billion small
animals a year. Many are rodents, but some are frogs and reptiles, which are not as abundant.
There are several bird species like the canada warbler, the wood thrush,
and the piping plover whose numbers are crashing in part due to cat predation.
When cats are left outdoors they can become feral and
invasive and cause immense ecological destruction.
Feral cats and outdoor cats have been cited as the main reason for
the extinction of over 60 species. The damage is especially catastrophic on
islands with birds that didn’t have natural land predators.
Today cats kill over 1 billion endemic Australian animals a year.
Because of these devastating numbers, the Australian government is trying
to cull 2 million feral cats to protect the local wildlife.
In New Zealand, they’re part of the Predator Free 2050, which is trying to get rid of
invasive predators like cats, stoats, and possums to protect the local birds.
So please keep your cats indoors. This is needed for bird populations to recover.
And even though they have the genes to survive in the wild, as long as you give them lots of
love and attention they have richer, healthier, and longer lives indoors.
Back to the history of their domestication, new genetic research is starting to challenge some
of current beliefs about cat domestication. For example, scientists are beginning to find evidence
that the cats in the fertile crescent may not have been the ancestors to today’s house cats.
Instead, these early felines were a different species altogether,
and may have been useful to humans for food and clothing rather than companions. However,
these theories await confirmation, and are pending genetic analysis of ancient Egyptian cat remains.
Today, domestic cats are everywhere. An estimated 600 million to a billion
of them roam the planet from pampered pets to feral colonies.
It’s wild, pun intended, to watch the glow up of these clever,
self-domesticating hunters who went from African wildcats to cultural icons in Egypt,
to global soft and fuzzy companions, and in some cases, back to global invaders.
So whether you’re admiring a Bengal’s spots, watching a feral colony, or just cuddling your
house cat, remember: these little hunters may be tiny, but their story and its impact, is enormous.
So what should we talk about next? Please let me know in the comments and don’t forget
to subscribe for new episodes every week. Thanks for watching! See ya!
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