All Cat Breeds Are One Species

Although I have said it before a few times, in the light of the recent discussion on the cat breed mashup, I think it is useful to remind ourselves that there are 36 wild cat species¹. Amongst these species, within a group of small cats, is the domestic cat with the scientific name of felis silvestrus catus.

Domestic cat is one cat species
Domestic cat is one cat species. Source: Wild Cats of the World by the Sunquists.
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Nowadays, when scientists distinguish one wild cat species from another they employ DNA testing. In the current classification of the species scientists have decided that all domestic cats are effectively the same from a DNA standpoint. It makes no difference if the cat is feral, stray, domestic moggie, fancy cat breed, Russian, Egyptian, American, English, Japanese or anything else. They are all the same species of cat: felis silvestrus catus.

Surely that puts the cat breeds into perspective? When scientists do DNA testing on the cat breeds as discussed in the Cat Breeds: Its a Mashup page, they are analysing fine differences between the breeds to decide which region they might have come from or if there is a commonality between certain breeds. Yet, these differences are not sufficiently great to allow any one cat breed to be separated out as a different cat sub-species or species.

As we have discussed in the comments, the cat breed is a human creation. It is a manufactured product of the human imagination. A cat breed is not the product of nature. Nature has a reason to make animals: better survival. The driving force behind the cat breeds is entertainment. They are the product of a human hobby.

Many cat breeds are less able to survive than the moggie. The super long haired contemporary Persian, the most popular cat breed according to the CFA, should be a full-time indoor cat because its fur is unnaturally long “Their long flowing coats require an indoor, protected environment….” (CFA profile)

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Note:

  1. This is what is currently agreed but the classification of the species is work in progress and the figure varies. There are more than 36 cats listed in the drawing on this page.

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22 thoughts on “All Cat Breeds Are One Species”

  1. Your lineage chart is wrong. You are showing that the domesticated cat breeds are part of the original “tree of cats”. But in reality you should have two lines drawn from the lines denoting the African Wildcat and the European Wildcat. Detached from the main trunk (nature’s evolutionary endeavors), and starting off on their own man-made path between those two. This is often drawn with dotted lines to show they are not part of any naturally occurring species.

    The way you have it drawn now you are directly implying that the domesticated cat species came from nature. That it, along with the European and African cats, all came from one common ancestor (where those 3 lines meet). They do not. The domesticated cat came wholly from the handiwork of man.

    In fact, the way you have it drawn, you are depicting that the domesticated cat was the original cat species and the European and African Wildcats are descendants of some earlier form of the domesticated cats (being denoted by being the central limb of those 3 species). Your lineage tree is wrong on all counts.

    Reply
    • Thanks for the comment. The chart comes from a highly respected book, The Wild Cats Of The World by the Sunquists. The lineage of the cat species as well as their taxonomy is in flux and people will have different opinions as to how to draw such a chart.

      The domesticated cat came wholly from the handiwork of man.

      I am not sure this is accurate because it implies that people “created” the domestic cat when in fact it was a mutual arrangement and the wild cat ancestor, the wildcat (as a domestic cat) has simply evolved over the past 9,500 years or so. That is a combination of nature (natural evolution) and human intervention.

      Reply
  2. No Michael. Fiona Sunquist has nothing to do with this. I never mentioned her except to say it is not about her. Please read Sarah Hartwell’s critique. It’s all about Leslie Lyons’ and co-worker’s obsession with the cat fancy concoctions, and her need to authenticated them.

    Reply
  3. Michael, Harvey talks about one geneticist Leslie A Lyons.

    Some of those studies done by her and her students contain some flaws where personal opinions/interpretations are shown as some kind of ”facts” like the cat ”Turkish Angora” is best representative of all Turkish cats. This is dishonesty and absurd because this cat is man made from cats non-Turkish origin and the data actually proves that.

    This is very important for Angora breeders to keep illusion alive that those cats they breed are from ”Ankara Zoo” or very ”pure” Turkish strays. In reality it is not. For most of part loosing breeds history would be a tragedy for cat fancy.

    Nobody wants to be called a liar, after all…

    Fiona Sunquist has nothing to do with it.

    Reply

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