Cat Evolution

Cat Evolution:

Today's Pet Cats have all evolved from three to possible four of the wild Feliade species.

The first domestic cats of which we have any evidence, were those of Ancient Egypt. Whose mummified remains were discovered by archaeologists at Beni Hasan in central Egypt in 1889.

The Egyptian Cat remains dated from about 2000 BC, when the worship of the cat had evidently become well established. The most common type of cat found in Egypt was similar to the lightly tabby African wild cat, Felis libyca, which is a native to the areas bordering the Mediterranean. No all the mummified cats were felis lybyca, however.

Ancient Egyptian civilization was based on good rich crops of grain, from two to even three crops of grain per year, planted on the fertile land that was fertilized by the Nile valley and Delta.

By about 3000 BC, Egypt was a flourishing kingdom. No doubt the cat evolution of wild cats were attracted by the Egyptian farms by the rich pickings of rodents to be found in the barns, and later they were to be found in the cities where the vast stocks of corn were to be found stored in granaries. Famously adaptable, the cats would have become a permanent feature of Egyptian life, and from there the process of domestication would have begun.

European Wild cat being the third ancestor of the modern cat, is the European wild cat, Felis silvestris , with its distinctive, rounded black tipped tail. This is similar to the African wild cat, though, rather stockier and with darker, more pronounced tabby markings which are possibly the result of its natural habitat in more temperature regions.

How felis silvestris came into the genetic picture can only be guessed at, but it was (and part of the British isles still is) a common species in northern Europe and may have infiltrated into farming settlements there in the same way as the African wild cat in Egypt. Another possibility in cat evolution is that Egyptian cats taken to Ancient Rome by traders, or possibly carried to Rome aboard ship as stowaways , spread northwards with the Roman Legions and interbred with their European cousins. It is known that the Roman army took cats with them all over Western Europe to protect their food supplies, and also that interbreeding between libyca and silvestris can be generally successful.

Asian Ancestors a possibly fourth ingredient in the mix of the domestic cats Pallas's cat, Felis manul. A native of central Asia , its hair is longer than that of its three distant cousins, and it could have introduced a long hair gene into the mixture as the domestication of cast spread.

The domestic cat populations of cat evolution in South-east Asia were well established in early historical times, and it is possible that Felis manul - a fearless cat that would not have any doubts about approaching human settlements in search of food - interbred with the other ancestor species.

The domestic cat populations of South-east Asia were well established in early historical times, and it is possible that Felis manul - a fearless cat that would not have any doubts about approaching human settlements in search of food - interbred with the other ancestor species.

Cat evolution in becoming domesticated: It would be too much of a simplification , however to suggest that these wild species simply adopted human hosts and thus automatically become domesticated. Many wild cats, large and small, hung around human settlements to take what they can, but they remain as implacably as they were born.

Domestic cats, by contrast, are born tame and as soon habituated to human company. Even feral cats, which either directly or by heredity have experienced human contact but may have become 'wild' in their behaviour, soon accustomed themselves to human company as when, as for, when for example, they were fed by human friends.

Clearly some genetic changes in cat evolution must have taken place, in the many generations since the first time the wild cat approached a farm and found its barn full of mice, during which which prolonged contact with humans (and the plentiful warmth, comfort and food available in human surroundings) has given the domestic cat a more placid - more pragmatic-personality than its wild relatives.

The gradual genetic change rather than mere habit was responsible for producing the domestic cat is shown by the fact that its brain is significantly smaller than that of the wild cat.

Cats, In the Beginning

The Domestic Cat is one of 38 species of the cat family, or Felidae. To trace their evolution, we would have to travel back about 20 million years to when the first mammals - warm blooded creatures that bear and suckle their young.

They were small creatures, no match for their larger egg-laying dinosaurs that then ruled the earth. About 65 million years ago disaster overtook the dinosaurs. From the transition of dinosaurs to mammals. From then on, the cat grew in size, variety and numbers.
THE MIACIDS of all the mammals, one group, the miacids, were among the most successful. They were adept hunters , using their intelligence to locate and hunt their prey and use their ferocious claws to kill their prey.

About 40 million years ago, different groups of miacids began to develop, most of them, small tree creatures, but some, of terrifying size which have been identified from fossil remains. To judge from these fossil discoveries, one of the most successful miacid species - and certainly one you would not wish to meet on a dark prehistoric night - was Smilodon , the sabre-toothed cat with the mouth dominated by two canine teeth like tusks several centimeters long.

SMILODON flourished from about 35 million years ago. Unlike other tree -hunting miacids, it fed off the great herds of grazing animals which then roamed the continents.
The oldest sabre-toothed cats remains found so far were in Derbyshire, England. They were 30,000 years old.

DINCTIS being the another maicid descendant, that led to today's Fadaline species. Which were smaller and faster creatures.
By the time the great Ice Age began, about 3 million years ago. Dinictis species closely resembling modern small cats were evidently well established. The oldest fossils of these were dated at about 12,000,000 years ago. That the harsh conditions of the Ice Ages, killing off the grazing herds and making hunting more a matter of skill and intelligence, which favoured them over larger species. As the Ice Ages came and went , cats even more like those of the historical world, large and small started to develop, all descended from Dinictis and numbering about 100 species.

Fossil evidence shows that these species well pre-dated the evolution of any creature resembling homo sapiens.
 

SPREAD OF A SPECIES

The process of evolution described above began before the continents had yet reached their present geographical position. At this stage, the land masses which were to become the southern continents South America, Antarctica and Australasia - had begun to break away from the northern mass consisting of North America, Europe, Asia and Africa.

When he original cat species evolved, they were able to spread easily through the Northern mass, crossing from Asia to North America (like the American settlers) by the land bridge, across what is now the Bering Strait. There is fossil evidence that a variety of cats, large and small, made this crossing in prehistoric times, although the only modern species to inhabit both Asia and Northern America is the Lynx.

Antarctica and Australasia , however were too isolated by this time for any cat species to reach them, and in Australasia evolution pursued its divergent course with the development of marsupials like the kangaroo and wallaby. To this day, the only Australian or New Zealand cats were descendants of felines introduced by settlers.

So by the time the first humans were developing in Asia and Africa, cats of various kinds are already established on the northern land mass. No doubt the larger cats found prey in the human settlements

Probably the smaller species found the scraps of meat thrown away by the hunting humans a useful and easily obtained addition to their diet. But while Homo sapiens was still living a roving life, hunting and later keeping herds of goats, his contact with the cat family must have been occasional and accidental. It was only when humans began to settle and work the soil to produce grain that the long relationship between cats and humans really began.