A Michael Broad Blog
The similarity of all cat species from the modest domestic cat to the massive Siberian tiger, in terms of their anatomy and behaviour, indicates that through eons of evolution, this species of predator has been perfected. There is no more work for evolution to do. This is the thought of an evolutionary biologist, Anjali …
There is a brilliantly funny ad for Cravendale milk which was very successful, in which domestic cats rebelled against the human because he wouldn’t give them milk. All the rebellious cats had opposable thumbs and they behaved like humans. And that’s the point if you want to be serious about it. The cats became …
James Sanderson and Patrick Watson in their book Small Wild Cats make what I think is a very interesting suggestion or theory as to why all members of the Felidae family i.e. all cats, are hyper-carnivores meaning that they can only eat meat and that their digestive systems and anatomy have evolved over millions …
Natural selection and selection pressures over millions of years of evolution is the reason why the Andean mountain cat has a predominantly grey coat while the sand cat has a sandy-coloured, even coat. These small wild cats illustrate how evolution works. The process is not about cats consciously adapting to the habitat where they …
This wonderful photograph of a Canada lynx padding its way through snow amply illustrates the enormous paws of this medium-sized wild cat weighing approximately 8-11 kg. It is a wild cat species which closely resembles the bobcat but the paws of the bobcat are much smaller because it has not evolved to live in …
This is a brief discussion on the well-known domestic cat’s meow and talkative cat breeds. You will see some websites proclaiming confidently that certain cat breeds are more talkative than others but I wouldn’t be so certain. Often it is an individual cat trait and it also depend a lot on the relationship between …
In the image below I have tried to present a feel for what the Fertile Crescent was like around 10,000 years ago when ‘at least five different females from the wildcat population’ befriended farmers and founded one of the greatest populations of domestic animal companions the world has seen: the domestic cat. Of course, …
The infographic answers the question as best I can. It is not clear when the multitude of different domestic cat coats first emerged through natural selection (evolution) except for the classic (blotched) tabby which emerged in the 18th century. But as the domestic cat is a domesticated North Eastern wildcat which is a rather …
