Scientists believe cats 'sort of domesticated themselves'

SignOnSanDiego.com ^ | June 29, 2007 | THE WASHINGTON POST

[DogByte6RER]

Scientists believe cats 'sort of domesticated themselves'

THE WASHINGTON POST

June 29, 2007

WASHINGTON – Your hunch is correct. Your cat decided to live with you, not the other way around. The sad truth is, it may not be a final decision.

But don't take this feline diffidence personally. It runs in the family. And it goes back a long way – about 12,000 years, actually.

Those are among the inescapable conclusions of a genetic study of the origins of the domestic cat, being published today in the journal Science.

The findings, drawn from the analysis of nearly a thousand cats around the world, suggest that the ancestors of today's tabbies, Persians and Siamese wandered into Near Eastern settlements at the dawn of agriculture. They were looking for food, not friendship.

They found what they were seeking in the form of rodents feeding on stored grain. They stayed for 12 millennia, although not without wandering off now and again to consort with their wild cousins.

The story is quite different from that of other domesticated animals – cattle, sheep, goats, horses, and dogs, cats' main rivals for human affection. It may even provide some insight on the behavior of the animal that, if not man's best friend, is certainly his most inscrutable.

“It is a story about one of the more important biological experiments ever undertaken,” said Stephen O'Brien, a molecular geneticist at the National Cancer Institute's laboratory in Frederick, Md., and one of the supervisors of the project.

“We think what happened is that cats sort of domesticated themselves,” said Carlos Driscoll, the University of Oxford graduate student who did the work, which required him, among other things, to befriend feral cats on the Mongolian steppes.

There are today 37 species in the family Felidae, ranging from lions through ocelots down to little Mittens. All domestic cats are descended from the species Felis sylvestris (“cat of the woods”), which goes by the common name “wildcat.”

The species is indigenous to Europe, the Middle East and East Asia. The New World, Japan and Oceania lack wildcats. Their closest counterpart in North America is the lynx.

There are five subspecies of wildcats and they look very much like many pet cats, particularly nonpedigree ones. The Scottish wildcat, for example, is indistinguishable from a barn cat with a mackerel tabby coat. These animals, however, are true wild species. They are not escaped pets that have become “feral,” or reverted to the wild.

Driscoll and his collaborators, who included Oxford zoologist David Macdonald, took blood samples and ear punch biopsies from all wildcat subspecies, and from fancy-breed cats, ordinary pet cats, and feral cats. They analyzed two different kinds of genetic fingerprints.

One was nuclear DNA, which carries nearly all of an animal's genes and reflects inheritance from both parents. The other was mitochondrial DNA, which exists outside the cell nucleus, carries only a few genes, and descends through the generations only from the mothers, never from fathers.

Both fingerprints showed that domesticated cats all around the world are most closely related to the wildcat subspecies (called lybica) that lives in the Near East.

One might think that people in each region would have domesticated their local wildcats. In that case, European pet cats today would genetically most closely resemble European wildcats and Chinese cats would be descended from East Asian wildcats. But that isn't the case.

Why not?

Genetics can't answer the question, but history and archaeology can provide a good guess.

Large-scale grain agriculture began in the Near East's “Fertile Crescent.” With the storage of surplus grain came mice, which fed on it and contaminated it.

Settled farming communities with dense rodent populations were a new habitat. Wildcats came out of the woods and grasslands to exploit it. They may have lived close to man – but not petting-close – for centuries.

Eventually, though, natural selection favored individual animals whose genetic makeup by chance made them tolerant of human contact. Such behavior provided them with them with things – a night indoors, the occasional bowl of milk – that allowed them to out-compete their scaredy-cat relatives in town.

[Nachum]

The cat was in shul?

He heard that there was a kiddush.

[getmeouttaPalmBeachCounty_FL]

Hi Caramelgal,

I really loved reading every bit of your post. And I can see we feel the same way about our sweet, sweet feline friends. And when rare gems such as ours are found, they are more precious and valued than hitting the lottery. I wouldn’t trade mine for the world.

Because there are those kitties who are naughty and completely on board the “me” cushion. I’ve owned them too, years ago. But Emma has taught us that kinship and love can occur between the owner of the house and the cat. And that even a kitty can be the one initiating the love in the first place. She patiently waits for us to always return home to her. And I suspect it’s the same for you.

Now go spoil your baby!

[To Hell With Poverty]

Here’s a good one. See post #5. :)

[SunkenCiv]

GGG managers are SunkenCiv, StayAt HomeMother & Ernest_at_the_Beach	join list or digest view topics view or post blog bookmark post a topic subscribe
Note: this topic is dated June 29, 2007. Blast from the Past. Thanks DogByte6RER. Just adding to the catalog, not sending a general distribution, or maybe re-adding and updating the GGG information, I'm past caring. WTH is UP with this SERVER?!? To all -- please ping me to other topics which are appropriate for the GGG list.

[SledgeCS]

I have a Manx that has a large assortment of “meow's”, “rrrr’s” and “merow’s” most of which I too also believe is his way of telling me that his food bowl is empty. I have gotten one of the auto-feeders that hold about 1 pound of dry food and that seems to keep him happy. But if that feeder runs empty he will let me know. One of my favorite ways to get payback for being a cat waiter is to mess with him on the feeder. When it is empty he makes a beeline to the kitchen to show me it is empty, I will then add in about 5-10 kernels of food. He will stare at the newly added kernels for a few seconds then look at me with a “WTF” look, go back to staring to the kernels a bit, then scowl at me with a look of “Fill it up or I will kill you and eat you when you sleep.”

[SledgeCS]

My Manx also understand the doorknob principle, in fact I had to replace the handle style with the round ones to keep him from opening up the doors. He is working on the round ones but not being able to jump up and hang from a handle has slowed him down.