What affects us affects cats
There is only one well documented example of a close relationship between a human and a cat from about 11,000 years ago. It is, we believe, the earliest known example of the domestic cat. Authors writing about cats, tend to say, as I have, that domestication of the Near Eastern wildcat commenced about 10,000 …
A 16th century artillery master who worked for German princes and fought against the armies of the Ottoman Empire, Franz Helm, advised readers of a Heidelberg University manuscript who wanted to capture an enemy’s castle to “obtain a cat from that place” and bind to the back of the cat “a small sack like …
There was a time before antibiotics when the domestic cat was more dangerous because infected scratches or bites could lead to a serious injury and on rare occasions death. The first antibiotic was penicillin which was discovered in 1928 in England. Also rabies was a threat in 19th century England. Packs of stray dogs …
If you click on this you’ll be taken to a map that shows information about how the domestic cat – all domestic cats, genetically speaking – are clustered into four groups. The link opens a new page so you can flick between this text and the map. The map (created by Michael using Google …
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 – …
People who criticise the cat for preying on small mammals and birds should be less vocal and outspoken and reconsider. For 99% of the entire time of the cat’s domestication which began around 9,500 years ago we wanted our cat to prey on small mammals which nearly always included rodents. This was the main …
Through the discovery of a big cat fossil deposited by a river in the north slopes of the Himalaya range, Central Asia, scientist can roll back by millions of years the time when big cats first roamed the planet and they really did have it all to themselves millions of years ago. Nowadays, their …
He are some examples of how the cat, throughout history, was used and abused in an unthinking way at the convenience of people. Centuries ago the attitude towards cats was probably less enlightened resulting in callous, officially sanctioned abuse. There are more examples than the few listed here. Turkey The first example comes from …
