What affects us affects cats
Received wisdom tells us that the first examples of the domestication of the Near Eastern wildcat (Felix silvestris lybica) or African wildcat occurred because it suited farmers to allow the wildcat to feed on the rodents who were in turn feeding on their grain. It was a mutual, commercial and functional arrangement. The wildcat …
A few hundred mummified Egyptian cats exist in museums and analysis of some of the remains reveals that they are mackerel tabby cats like the North African wildcat. I suppose that result might be expected. However, these mummified remains were of cats that existed 2000 years after the first domestication of the North African …
Almost all the cats of the small species of wild cat that is called the “wildcat” are hybrids. At some stage in their lineage an ancestor mated with a domestic cat. It may have been thousands of years ago but nearly all of them are not “purebred”. This is because the domestic cat – …
The DNA of all domestic cats has no trace of any wild cat species other than the African wildcat (also Near Eastern wildcat and Arabian wildcat – felis silvestris lybica). However, 10,000 years ago, there were a number of other suitable wild cat candidates who could have become the ancestor of the modern-day domestic …
