Posted on 09/21/2016 5:10:09 AM PDT by SJackson
First large-scale study of ancient feline DNA charts domestication in Near East and Egypt and the global spread of house cats.
Thousands of years before cats came to dominate Internet culture, they swept through ancient Eurasia and Africa carried by early farmers, ancient mariners and even Vikings, finds the first large-scale look at ancient-cat DNA.
The study, presented at a conference on 15 September, sequenced DNA from more than 200 cats that lived between about 15,000 years ago and the eighteenth century ad.
Researchers know little about cat domestication, and there is active debate over whether the house cat (Felis silvestris) is truly a domestic animal — that is, its behaviour and anatomy are clearly distinct from those of wild relatives. “We don’t know the history of ancient cats. We do not know their origin, we don't know how their dispersal occurred,” says Eva-Maria Geigl, an evolutionary geneticist at the Institut Jacques Monod in Paris. She presented the study at the 7th International Symposium on Biomolecular Archaeology in Oxford, UK, along with colleagues Claudio Ottoni and Thierry Grange.
(Excerpt) Read more at nature.com ...
That was a fun little movie ... back in the day.
bump
I bow to your experience :)
My cats are all indoor cats, and always have been. I don’t let them out, but I don’t declaw them either, so I have no decent furniture. But then furniture doesn’t care whether it is decent, or not.
“We don’t know the history of ancient cats. We do not know their origin, we don’t know how their dispersal occurred,”
...
At least now they have a good idea of where their spaceship landed.
could be.
In my neighborhood, it could be foxes. And I saw a coyote around once.
Likewise. We had indoor/outdoor in the middle of a medium-sized city (Baton Rouge), and never lost one. Then we moved to our current location, which is quite rural (which we initially thought would be safer), lost two to traffic, and decided to go "all indoor".
We do have a second-floor deck, which does not have exterior stairs, so they can go out on it, soak up sun, and watch (and occasionally catch) the birds.
Also, in the last five years or so, coyotes have found their way onto our island, and multiplied to the point that indoor/outdoor is dangerous for pretty much all pets.
It ain't just the unaltered ones that have the attitude. And with "calico momma" of the pseudo-ferals mentioned up-thread, there were other females. The queen-mother was still "da boss".
:) I came home from work one day, and one of the cats got out the door before I could stop it, and dashed into the woods. 10 minutes later she came back and has never attempted to leave the house again.
I visit a high school and college buddy and his wife often enough that I have a key and let myself in at ungodly hours, get the paper, make coffee, etc.
Early on I was warned to be careful not to let Remy, one of the cats out. Remy was a big mixed Persian looking cat, quite good looking, her brother Milo was a huge guy showing the Maine Coon Cat part of their shared heritage.
Milo found me beneath notice but Remy had an active dislike for me, go figure, my buddy’s brother’s cats mostly love me, his wife less so.
Early one morning I thought I’d gotten in without incident and while filling the coffee pot, to my horror I spotted Remy cavorting on the neighbor’s lawn.
My first thought was she had slipped out despite my efforts, my second thought was “Melissa will kill me if anything happens to her cat”.
I spent a half an hour with an opened can of extra stinky wet cat food pleading, “Psssp, psssp, nice kitty, come Remy, please kitty” only to have the cat run away.
Finally giving up 3 or 4 houses down the street, not wishing the cat to run off irretrievably I trudge back to awaken Melissa and face the music, entering the house to find a sleepy Melissa making coffee and her Remy, who hissed and jumped down, sitting on the counter.
I made confused choking noises and my explanation triggered Melissa’s peals of laughter as she explained the neighbors had an outdoor cat identical to her Remy....
Samurai Cat! (And his nephew Shiro.)
I always wondered why the feral cats in my neighborhood were so fat and healthy looking. They were eating squirrels ;-)
At one point, the management of my apartment complex put out humane traps with food in them. Only once did a cat get caught- usually the food was gone, and no sign of the cat!
We live in a very built-up suburban area; there are no other animals around here that would be taking down squirrels.
But we do have lots of squirrels, and birds; some mice. Kitties in this ‘hood are at the top of the animal food chain.
-JT
This topic was posted , thanks SJackson.
Check this out, bikkuri! There really were Viking Kittehs!
Rats have a different smell than any of the other rodents. Good for your Corgi!
‘Face
;o]
That's a dog's ultimate end game every time it sticks its nose in your crotch.
“They haven’t figured out how to cut our balls off yet..”
Their trained female human familiars handle that quite well.
Cats are secure in possession of the house and bed.
Men. Not so much.
+1
5.56mm
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