Latest news with #Felissilvestrislybica
Yahoo
31-03-2025
- General
- Yahoo
The history of cat domestication
When you buy through links on our articles, Future and its syndication partners may earn a commission. The domestic cat is one of the smallest members of the family Felidae — the group that includes lions, tigers, jaguars and cougars. It is also the only member of that family that has been domesticated. Cats have lived among humans for thousands of years. They probably started hanging around human grain stores, attracted by mice and other vermin, and eventually spread around the world as sailors brought them aboard ships. Today, cats still help humans control pests, as well as provide companionship. In the past few centuries, humans have bred some cats to display certain traits, like hairlessness, thereby establishing dozens of cat breeds. With their charming mix of aloofness and goofiness, cats continue to amuse and fascinate us. Cats were domesticated around 10,000 years ago. Today's domestic cats descend from Felis silvestris lybica, a wildcat subspecies found in Africa and the Middle East. Genes from cats found in archaeological sites in the Middle East, Europe and Africa reveal that about 10,000 years ago, in modern-day Turkey, cats started to associate with humans and split from their wild relatives. Despite having relatively small natural ranges, F. s. lybica showed up in eastern Europe by 4400 B.C., according to ancient cat DNA found at archaeological sites. This suggests that cats hitched rides aboard ships with traders, who probably appreciated that cats kept rats in check. Cats certainly traveled long distances: DNA from Egyptian cats has been found as far as a Viking site in northern Germany dating to between A.D. 700 and 1000. The oldest known burial of a domesticated cat comes from Cyprus, where a human and a cat were buried together 9,500 years ago. Cat bones also have been found buried in 5,300-year-old refuse pits in China. The ancient Egyptians revered cats. Here, we see statuettes and figurines depicting cats and Egyptian deities found in a cache dating to the Egyptian Late Period (around the fifth century B.C.). (Image credit: Photo by KHALED DESOUKI/AFP via Getty Images) Cats took on a starring role in ancient Egypt. Scientists aren't yet sure whether the Egyptians domesticated cats separately from the Middle East lineage, or whether the cats spread from Turkey to Egypt. Either way, Egyptians treasured cats' protectiveness and independence and saw the traits of their gods in cats. Cats were sometimes even mummified lovingly next to their deceased owners, but they were also sacrificed in large numbers during religious rituals. Bastet, a feline-headed goddess, was worshipped as a protector and as a deity of pregnancy and childbirth. Related: Why were the ancient Egyptians obsessed with cats? You might hear that cats "domesticated themselves." This is because ancient wildcats likely chose to hang around human agricultural settlements, resulting in a mutually beneficial relationship between cats and humans. These settlements provided ample food and shelter for cats. Because the cats helped keep vermin at bay, the people who inhabited these settlements tolerated — and eventually welcomed — cats' presence. Whereas humans domesticated dogs through artificial selection by breeding for desirable traits, domestic cats evolved simply through natural selection, as friendlier and more docile cats thrived in close contact with humans. Cats are not as domesticated as dogs are. Whereas cats were domesticated about 10,000 years ago, genetic evidence suggests that dogs were domesticated between 14,000 and 30,000 years ago. It's still up for debate exactly how and why some wild wolves evolved into friendly house pets, but it is clear that humans have spent much more time and effort shaping the genetic makeup of domestic dogs. In fact, scientists say that even today, cats are "only just" domesticated. Many domestic cats are actually feral, meaning they live outside of human captivity and can fend for themselves. Feral cats and house cats also regularly interbreed, so house cats retain many of their "wild" instincts. People also bred domestic dogs for thousands of years based on their skills and personalities, whereas humans started breeding domestic cats only within the past few centuries. This means dogs' temperaments tend to be more predictable and aligned with human needs than cats'. Even now, modern-day cats are categorized primarily by appearance. Although appearance is also a factor in canine breeding, historically, abilities such as tracking game, herding sheep and guarding property were more important. —Did cats really disappear from North America for 7 million years? —Are cats and dogs smarter than babies? —Cat brains are shrinking, and it's all humans' fault
Yahoo
09-03-2025
- Science
- Yahoo
Pet cats arrived in China via the Silk Road 1,400 years ago, ancient DNA study finds
When you buy through links on our articles, Future and its syndication partners may earn a commission. China's first pet cats arrived in the country around 1,400 years ago — likely via the famous Silk Road trading route, ancient feline DNA reveals. This new research — hailed as a "knockout study" — places the arrival of domestic cats in East Asia several hundred years later than previous studies. And it appears that the kitties were an instant hit with the local elite. "Cats were initially regarded as prized, exotic pets," study co-author Shu-Jin Luo, a principal investigator at the Laboratory of Genomic Diversity and Evolution at Peking University in China, told Live Science in an email. "Cats' mysterious behaviors — alternating between distant and affectionate — added an air of mystique." Modern domestic cats (Felis catus) descend from African wildcats (Felis silvestris lybica). Previous research suggests these felines began living alongside humans in the Middle East roughly 10,000 years ago, before evolving and then spreading to Europe about 3,000 years ago, according to the new study. Around A.D. 600, merchants and diplomats first transported domestic cats in small crates and cages from the eastern Mediterranean through Central Asia, Luo said. These traders and officials brought just a handful of the pets to China, offering them as tribute to members of the elite, she said. Related: Lasers reveal secrets of lost Silk Road cities in the mountains of Uzbekistan Archaeological evidence shows that long before the arrival of domestic cats in China, people in rural Chinese communities lived alongside native leopard cats (Prionailurus bengalensis). Researchers have previously found leopard cat bones dating to 5,400 years ago in an ancient farming village in the northwestern Shaanxi province, indicating that humans and cats co-existed in settlements together. But this relationship was not equivalent to cat domestication, the authors of the new study argued. Moreover, the common assumption that cat domestication took place in China during the Han Dynasty between 206 B.C. and A.D. 220 also lacks support, as there are no archaeological remains of pet cats from that period. Therefore, a complete re-evaluation of when and how domestic cats came to China is required, the researchers said in the study. To address these questions, Luo and her colleagues analyzed 22 feline remains from 14 archaeological sites in China spanning a period of about 5,000 years. The researchers first sequenced nuclear and mitochondrial DNA in the bones to determine each species. Then, the researchers compared these results with previously published data from 63 nuclear and 108 mitochondrial genomes that summarize the evolution of cat genetics worldwide. "This is by far the largest and most comprehensive study on small felids living closely with humans in China," Luo said. "Assembling the archaeological samples of cat remains from China across this time period [was] a highly challenging task." Fourteen of the 22 feline bones from China belonged to domestic cats, according to the study, which was uploaded Feb. 5 to the preprint database BioRxiv and has not yet been peer reviewed. The oldest of these pet cat remains originated from Tongwan City in Shaanxi and was radiocarbon dated to A.D. 730, suggesting that domestic cats arrived in China long after the Han Dynasty had ended. The 14 domestic cats in the sample all shared a genetic signature in their mitochondrial DNA known as clade IV-B. This signature is rare among domestic cats from Europe and Western Asia, but the researchers found a close match in the previously published data about a cat that lived sometime between A.D. 775 and 940 in the city of Dhzankent, Kazakhstan. The Dhzankent cat is the oldest-known domestic cat along the Silk Road, offering tantalizing clues about the origins of domestic cats in China. The Silk Road's heyday lasted between A.D. 500 and 800, hinting that merchants likely transported the kitties to East Asia along this route. The cats that merchants and diplomats initially gifted to the Chinese elite were likely all-white cats or mackerel-tabby cats with white patches, the researchers noted in the study. DNA from the Tongwan City cat suggested it was a healthy male with a long tail and short, either all-white or partially white fur, they said. Even today, the proportion of white cats is higher in East Asia than elsewhere in the world, the researchers added. RELATED STORIES —World's tiniest cat was a palm-sized tiddler that lived in China 300,000 years ago —1,200 years ago, a cat in Jerusalem left the oldest known evidence of 'making biscuits' on a clay jug —Over 40% of pet cats play fetch — but scientists aren't quite sure why Domestic cats became so popular following their introduction to China that people incorporated them into Chinese folk religion, Luo said. "Ancient Chinese people even performed specific religious rituals when bringing a cat into their homes, viewing them not as mere possessions but as honored guests," she said. Melinda Zeder, an archaeozoologist at the Smithsonian Institution's National Museum of Natural History who was not involved in the new research, told Science magazine that the work offers valuable insights into how domestic cats made it to China. "Tying them to the Silk Road is really boffo," Zeder said. "It's a knockout study."
