What is the difference between a pet cat and a wild cat?
The question seems innocuous and the answer obvious but the explanation is not quite as simple as people might expect. The comparison will be to the pet cat’s wild cat ancestor. Here is my...
Category: Wildcat
All of today’s 600 million domestic cats descend from at least 5 female wildcats
It is an astonishing thought. About ten thousand years ago at least five different individual female cats of the Near Eastern wildcat (aka North African wildcat) population living in the savannah had the courage...
Why do cats sometimes flick one hind paw after eating?
We are referring to domestic cats. Perhaps wild cats do it as well. Some of them probably do and one species definitely does: the African wildcat, the ancestor of the domestic cat. I have...
Police seize Scottish wildcat from charity and it’s downhill from there
NEWS AND VIEWS: The police have been at it again; screwing up and messing around. And telling fibs, I’d say. In the UK can we trust the police anymore? No, I’m afraid not. In...
All of today’s 600m domestic cats descend from 5 female matriarchal wildcats
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...
20 facts about the closest relations of the domestic cat
Intro: this page contains some opinions too! Here are 20 facts about the closest relations of the domestic cat. The Near Eastern wildcat aka North African wildcat is the ancestor of the domestic cat....
Pet tabby cat seized by Welsh police thinking it might be a Scottish wildcat
NEWS AND COMMENT-CONWY, NORTH WALES: This is a bizarre story which makes me scratch my head in bemusement. Arguably, there are no Scottish wildcats left on the planet because the very rare ones that...
European wildcat habitat and hunting – classic cat technique
The European Wildcat is, like other Wild cat species, under continual pressure from human population growth and activity. The wildcat is the ancestor of the domestic cat and therefore they are arguably the ‘authors...
European wildcat description – a wild-looking tabby cat
Take a domestic tabby cat, make them a little larger, make them more substantial with a thick and slightly longer and denser coat, make the tabby markings a little less pronounced and give the...
African and Asian wildcat – complete information
Based on a mitochondrial DNA study the umbrella label of “African wildcat” can be broken down into the Near Eastern wildcat (North African wildcat), the Asian wildcat (Asiatic wildcat), and the Southern African wildcat....
African-Asian Wildcat
Introduction The description “African-Asian wildcat” describes two subspecies of wild cat whose combined distribution is from the southernmost tip of the African continent, through the Middle East and East towards a region north and...
Genetic profile of the Scottish wildcat has been lost because of centuries of hybridization
My reading of a very long and detailed report on a study indicates to me that the experts no longer know for sure what they’re looking for in terms of the genetic profile of...
Can European wildcats be domesticated?
The question is a sensible one because all of the world’s half a billion domestic and feral cats originate in a domesticated North African wildcat (Far Eastern wildcat or African-Asian wildcat). It happened about...
Chinese mountain cat is a subspecies and is not the ancestor of domestic cats in China
I am picking up on a study that I have written about before which genetically analysed the Chinese mountain cat to confirm (1) that it is a subspecies of wildcat and not species in...
Chinese mountain cat is hybridized and was not domesticated
Recent research tells us two things about the Chinese mountain cat aka Chinese desert cat: they are hybridized and they were not involved in the cat domestication process. Hybridization Hybridization is sometimes referred to...
Note: sources for news articles are carefully selected but the news is often not independently verified.
