What affects us affects cats
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 …
I may be hard for some people to understand that cats were present on planet Earth 35 million years ago. These were the first ‘true cats’. The era is called the Oligocene. This first cat has the Latin name: Proailurus. The name is a merging of ‘pro’ meaning early and ‘ailurus’ meaning cat from …
Introduction: This article conerns a new study on cat predation. The first point to make is that the study I’m referring to concerns “free-ranging cats (Felis catus)”. That’s important because across the world there are many small wild cat species which prey upon many types of animal. This study and this article is about …
People are very familiar with the distinctive and iconic appearance of the sabretooth tiger and other species of sabertooths, which became extinct about 10,000 years ago. They were slightly smaller than today’s biggest lions and tigers and the question being discussed here is whether they roared like a lion. A study from North Carolina …
Many cat owners might say that their domestic cat companion is an excellent pet. I’m going to say something which is almost heretical and something which sounds anti-cat as if said by a cat hater. But I’m not; I am a cat lover and a realist. And with that character trait, I have to …
Times have moved on substantially from 1821 in Britain. I think this was a time when the consequences of an era called The Enlightenment were being felt. Animal welfare in Britain was being discussed in Parliament perhaps for the first time. The first proposal for a law to prevent abuse of animals was a …
Some people think that it is time to give up our cats and dogs as it is unethical and their domestication not worked out well. It’s time to end it. This would apply to other animals as well. It’s a whopping suggestion. It’s probably entirely impractical seeing as there are probably up to 500 …
