From 1 to 250 million domestic cats in 10,000 years

At the moment the news media is discussing the domestication of the cat. A good moment to present the story in a different light as indicated in the title. 

At one time - we are unsure exactly when but perhaps around 10,000 years ago - there was one domestic cat. The first domestic cat in the world. Well, they weren't exactly domesticated, more tamed North African wildcat but for sake of keeping things simple we'll call that first, precious cat 'domesticated'.

Image: MikeB

Of course, the person with whom the cat resided had no idea that they were making history! But they were. It was entirely novel at the time. But also, at that time the dog had been domesticated for about 10,000 years already!

Anyway, 10,000 years later humankind has around 250 million domestic cats living on the planet it is believed. The number is a guess so please don't quote the figure as a fact as it is not.

The trouble with the internet is that what starts out as an estimate or even a guess becomes fact after it has been recycled hundreds of times online through various website but mainly news media websites.

To the approximate quarter of a billion domestic cats, we can add a similar number of feral and stray cats making a grand total of around half a billion (500,000,000).

For me, the equal number of feral cats strongly indicates that cat domestication has been an unmitigated failure despite the fact that their presence in millions of homes has brightened up the lives of their human caregivers. But there should be no feral cats.

Each feral cat is a failure in cat domestication. A failure in cat ownership and caregiving. In the early days of cat domestication by the Ancient Romans I suspect that there were very few feral cats.

Domestic cats were perhaps more important and relatively rare. As they become ever more commonplace their value decreased leading to poor cat caregiving, carelessness leading to domestic cats becoming unwanted strays and ferals.

This carelessness in cat ownership would have led and still does to allowing them to procreate. Back in the day there was no such thing as spaying and neutering or veterinarians.

Now we have vets and still careless people allow their cats to procreate to swell the number of feral cats further.

The worst case of humankind's relationship with the cat is in Australia where there is legalised cat cruelty on a large scale as the authorities poison, shoot and kill in any way possible the feral cats on that continent with no thought to dealing with the 'problem' humanely.

Australia is the ultimate example of failure in cat domestication as it is full of cruelty.

Cat owner's in medieval England advised to keep cats out of the bedroom

The French adage "plus ça change" comes to my mind immediately.  It is a phrase which means that things don't change because basic human nature does not change even over thousands of years.

Medieval bedroom with woman and her cat. Photo-edited pic by MikeB.

And so back in medieval times (500-1500 AD) a well-known book which can still be found on Google, "Boke of Nature", advises in the strongest terms to keep domestic cats out of the bedroom:

"Dryve out dogge and catte, or els geve them a clout"

I guess you can understand it but it must mean:

"Drive dogs and cats out of the bedroom and if they enter hit them!"

Nice. A bit unfriendly to say the least. 

There is a strange medieval story of a knight and a lady he loves. She has a cat companion. She rejected the knight's advances. He goes to her bedroom at night in disguise. Her cat scratches him. She softens as a result and becomes his mistress but he refuses to marry her because he is scared of her cat! 

Some knight of the realm 😒. Lacking a bit of courage. Although the story is very modern in that the woman has the cat and the man appears not to be very keen on them.

The debate about domestic cats in bedrooms continues. I expect it has been a firm discussion topic since the domestic cat was imported into Britain by the Romans!

The best solution is compromise. Allow cats into the bedroom as it is so important to them. It is a major part of their home range. Don't deny them access. 

Make a nice, warm bedding area for your cat in the bedroom full of delicious cat owner smells and hope that she uses it. I understand the difficulties as cats disturb sleep but you get used to it. It is one of those human behaviour adaptations that cat caregivers have to transition to.

Source: Medieval Cats by Kathleen Walker-Meike.

1901 Persian Cat vs 2009 Persian Cat

A pictorial comparison between a Persian cat of 1901 in Britain and a Persian show cat of about 2009 in the United States. The difference shows us how far the development of the Persian cat has come over more than 100 years. Is it a good, positive development?

I'd like to refer you to two pages on PoC that discuss the Persian cat and its development:

1. Persian cats
2. Persian cat breeding

And I'd also like to refer to DOMESTIC AND FANCY CATS - A PRACTICAL TREATISE ON THEIR VARIETIES, BREEDING, MANAGEMENT AND DISEASE (1901) by John Jennings who was an experienced show cat judge of the time.

Mr Jennings says this of the Persian show cat of his era:

"The ears should be somewhat small. The head should be small for the size of the car. The body should be long and rounding. The Persian should scale 8lb to 10lb."

The CFA standard for the Persian at 2012 says:

"HEAD: round and massive, with great breadth of skull...EARS: small. When viewed in profile, the prominence of the eyes is apparent and the forehead, nose, and chin appear to be in vertical alignment...BODY: of cobby type, low on the legs, broad and deep through the chest, equally massive across the shoulders and rump."

I don't have to add a comment save to say that the long, elegant 1901 Persian cat has become a somewhat dumpy, flat-faced rounded cat of more extreme proportions.

I don't know about anybody else, but it has always mystified me why the cat breeders who administer the CFA decided that the Persian cat should have such a flat face. For some reason they think that the appearance of this extreme Persian cat is more aesthetically pleasing than the original version. I can't see the logic in the decision making. 

The earlier versions are aesthetically more pleasing than the later ones. It seems to me that the cat associations have gone backwards. Not only are the early Persians better looking they are healthier because the extreme breeding alters the anatomy, as you know, of the face which can cause breathing problems and tear duct overflow. 

What is going on? What happened? How did the CFA arrive at this situation? And can they go back? They certainly don't want to go back when they should be more open to that possibility. In fact, I would highly recommend that they do, for the reasons stated above.

Associated: Traditional Persian Cat.

Domestic cats today are significantly smaller and more varied in colour compared to the Ancient Egyptian era

This is a short note to remind us that today's domestic cat is smaller and more varied in coat colour and pattern compared to the domestic cats of Ancient Egypt and earlier.

Domestic cats today are significantly smaller and more varied in colour compared to the Ancient Egyptian era. Image in the public domain.

This is because all the domestic cats of Ancient Egypt were very similar to their wild ancestor the North African wildcat. This is essentially a mackerel/spotted tabby cat and the same size as a large domestic cat nowadays. The average domestic cat size in Ancient Egypt was the same as a current large domestic cat.

In illustrations from Ancient Egypt we see what appear to be semi-domesticated wildcats which is what they were. They were not fully domesticated in those days. No doubt they hunted for most of their nutrition. It is quite hard to visualise all the domestic cats being essentially the same as we are very familiar with a huge variety nowadays. 

Over several thousands of years the domestic cat evolved into a more delicate, smaller creature with a multitude of coat colours and patterns. They developed these new coat types because of informal selective breeding on the back of spontaneous genetic mutations. There was no need for the cats to wear great camouflage. If people liked the coat it stuck and did not fizzle out as it would have in the wild.

The blotched tabby pattern is relatively recent - read about it by clicking the link below:

Evolution of the blotched tabby pattern of domestic cats

Are domestic cats related to lions and tigers?

Yes, domestic cats are related to lions and tigers and all the other cats because they all started off at the same source. This is about evolution and taxonomy. But you have to go back about 40 million years to Miacoids (miacids) which appear to be the first cats on the planet although they did not look like modern day cats. 

Tiger and domestic cat. Collage: PoC.

It is currently believed that from that start all the cat species evolved in different places and at different times. Miacids evolved into the Proailurus (a civet/cat creature) and that creature evolved into prehistoric cats which walked on their toes like modern day cats. 

An example was a species called Pseudaelurus. This creature was the size of a modern-day cat. It evolved into two main groups one of which was Schizailurus which in turn evolved into the Felidae (the family of cats). Martelli's cat was a species which inhabited Europe about 2.4 million years ago and which is believed to be the ancestor of today's wildcat, a species of cat which is still present in Europe. Apparently the first modern day cats were cheetahs.

Cat history from the start to modern day. Cat History For Kids. Credits: Landscape of N.America 10m years ago Wikimedia Commons author Jay Matternes. In public domain USA. Fair use pleaded. Pseudaelurus in public domain USA and fair use pleaded. USA 1945 by army.arch creative commons. Snowshoe cat copyright Helmi Flick. Note: there is one small deliberate mistake in the picture. Can you spot it and leave a comment?

You have to believe in evolution to believe that domestic cats are related to lions and tigers. But science supports evolution. It is through evolution that domestic cats are related to lions and tigers. Domestic cats are very, very similar in every respect to lions and tigers. There is not much difference which is apparent because they both look like cats! There's a massive size difference but the domestic cat, in its mind, thinks just like a tiger or lion. And their behaviour is incredibly similar. That alone tells you that they are related.

If you want to know a bit more about big cat history you can click on this link. And I cover the evolution of the cat species in a simplified way on this page (click link please). The science of taxonomy which is the classification of the species is evolving itself. It was enhanced through scientific knowledge of DNA. Before DNA scientists simply observed an animal undecided whether it was similar to another animal and therefore classified it as part of a species or subspecies. That proved to be imprecise whereas DNA testing is very precise because it gets to the core of the issue.

Where do Abyssinian cats come from?

We are not sure where Abyssinian cats come from. However, the best assessment is that they come from Abyssinia which is what the citizens of Ethiopia call their country nowadays. Officially it is called the Ethiopian Empire. It is in north-east Africa. It is believed that the first Abyssinian cat in England was called Zula. This individual cat, it is believed, was brought to England by the wife of Captain Barrett-Lennard in 1868. 

This is according to Gordon Stables writing in 1874. The date, 1868, coincides with the end of the Abyssinian confrontation and it is probable that she obtained the cat from one of the returning soldiers from that war. The name of the cat, Zula, is the name of the northern Abyssinian port at which the British military force established its first base in 1867.

 Where do Abyssinian cats come from? See map above.

It is then believed that the cat was selectively bred in England during the early years of the cat fancy from ticked tabby coated cats brought back to England from Abyssinia after this brief war. It appears that more than one cat was brought back which allowed selective breeding to take place and to found or create the new breed which was labelled the Abyssinian cat.

The cat was first listed as a distinct breed in 1882. Its status was contested. The first breed standard for this cat was published in 1889 by Harrison Weir who is described as the father of the cat fancy. The first Abyssinian cats to be registered in the National Cat Club studbook occurred in 1896 and in 1907 the first Abyssinian caps were exported to the United States.

Abyssinian cat. Photo in public domain nowadays/

It should be strongly noted, however, that there are a lot of theories about the origin of the Abyssinian cat. We don't know for sure. A lot of what is said is either a best guesstimate, a decent analysis or pure speculation. But the name of the cat points strongly to Ethiopia as the country of origin and it does tie in quite nicely with the fact that there was a war there which allowed soldiers to bring animals back. The cats must have seemed quite exotic at that time because of the interesting ticked tabby coat. This is a coat which does not have markings like the classic tabby (except the M on the forehead and a dark tipped tail) but the coat has a broken and rusty appearance.

Some writers of the era speculated that the Abyssinian cat might be a direct descendant of the sacred cat of the ancient Egyptians. Egypt is close to Abyssinia. And the Abyssinian cat, when in the sitting position, looks very like the statuettes of the ancient Egyptian era right down to the appearance of the face. But there's no hard evidence to back up the idea that this is a cat from ancient Egypt.

The first domestic cats of Europe in Poland lived off mice and voles

In confirmation of currently accepted fact that the first domestic cats in existence some 10k years ago were effectively working cats living on farms and feeding on mice and other rodents in the Fertile Crescent (this area includes Syria), a study on the first domestic cats in Europe, in Poland, found that they lived the same lifestyle. They studied domestic cat remains dated to 4200-2300 BC and confirmed through isotopic evidence that they preyed upon mice and voles. In their own words this is the conclusion:

Archeological dig in Europe researching early domestic cats (believed). Photo: Magdalena Krajcarz

"The isotopic signature of Late Neolithic NE cats suggests that they were free-living, not dependent on a human-produced food, and preyed upon synanthropic mice and voles (i.e., crop pests). The NE cats shared their isotopic niche with European wildcats although the native subspecies utilized a much broader niche than the NE cats did."

Note: the late Neolithic period varies depending upon which part of the world one is referring to but in Poland it is the dates as specified above. It is interesting that they decided that the cats were free-living. This meant that they lived side-by-side with people not in the classic domestic cat relationship. They appear to have been more like barn cats. The word "synanthropic" refers to animals or plants that live near and benefit from an association with human beings and the artificial habitats the people create around themselves.

These cats were imported by traders from the Middle East and lived in a country were there was an abundance of European wildcats who lived on a similar diet.

The study: Ancestors of domestic cats in Neolithic Central Europe: Isotopic evidence of a synanthropic diet. It is published on PNAS.

The cat: humankind's most interesting friend

The dog is often referred to as "man's best friend" so perhaps it is fair to say that the domestic cat is "humankind's most interesting friend". We have to drop the word "man" nowadays because of equality policies, rules and in all fairness to be honest. It's about time the word was dropped. In 2003 Linda P Case said that the cat had surpassed the dog in total numbers as a household pet in the United States.

The domestic cat. Photo: in public domain.

I'm not sure that we know that for certain. I've always considered the number of cats and dogs to be very similar in America and indeed in the UK and other developed countries. In less well developed countries the dog surpasses the cat because the dog is utilitarian i.e. working animals.

In the West it is also more common for people to share their lives and their homes with two or more cats at the same time. And it is known now very clearly that cats provide a range of benefits to their human carers, the most important of which are emotional and psychological. Domestic cats are perhaps more important than people realise in society today.

The domestic cat is probably a distinct species today. Some people refer to the domestic cat is a subspecies but I would call the household cat a species in the same bracket as the African wildcat, the Chinese desert cat, the European wildcat, the jungle cat, the sand cat and the black-footed cat. They are described as the "domestic cat lineage" in terms of the taxonomy of the cat family by two distinguished authors (the Sunquists).

The cat, although similar in terms of status with the domestic dog, has an entirely different relationship with their human caretakers and co-specifics within the human society. Doctor Bradshaw says that the cat is barely domesticated which means that they have retained to a large extent their independence, certainly of mind and their ability to hunt effectively. So although they develop enduring bonds with humans they have a necessity to express these innate desires.

Perhaps in another 1000 or 2000 years of domestication they will have lost this mentality and at that time they will behave more like a domestic dog. Domestic cats are somewhat of an anomaly in that they are beloved members of the family as well as being feral in far too great a number. This is only due to human carelessness. It is a great shame that humankind has been so careless in the domestication of the cat.

This was never envisaged at the beginning of domestication of the North African wildcat about 10,000 years ago. It wasn't part of the deal. And feral cats are the cause of so much argument among people as to how to deal with them and invariably there is a large section of society who want deal with them in an inhumane way. I am referring to the politicians and administrators of the continent of Australia as a sharp example.

The cat is a member of the order, Carnivora. This includes a diverse group of animals all of which are predators. They are named because of their carnassial teeth. These are at the back of the jaw where the human molars are. They have a shearing action a bit like scissors to tear flesh from the bodies of the animal that they've killed.

Cats evolved during the Eocene epoque. This is about 54 million years ago. Many of these animals were tree dwellers. They had long slender bodies and short legs with a long tail.

About 30 million years ago the miacids split into two groups: the viverines and the miacines. The former are now known to be the oldest ancestor of the domestic cat whereas the latter are the ancestors of the dog, bear, raccoon and weasel. The viverines branched into two primary lines. One of these lines produced several very large prehistoric cats including the sabertooth tiger. The other line included a small cat, Dinictus, which later evolved into several distinct cat species. The evidence suggests that Dinictus is the main ancestor of all cat species alive on the planet today including our beloved domestic cat.

Did cats domesticate themselves?

It claimed that 'cats domesticated themselves'. But what does it mean? Firstly the statement should be amended to read, 'wildcats domesticated themselves'. That makes more sense and is more precise.

The cat domesticated itself? This is a European wildcat. The African-Asia version
of this wild cat species allowed themselves to be domesticated around 10,000
years ago but they did not 'domesticate themselves' in my opinion. Photo: Creative Commons
license on Flickr.

Specifically the African-Asian wildcat domesticated itself. But I am unsure if this is correct. The process of domestication takes two parties: the animal and the human. They play at least an equal role and perhaps in this instance the human played the major role.

What it means is that wild cats liked to be around farmers' grain stores about 10,000 years ago because there were hordes mice and other rodents there providing a supply of food. It was very attractive to a wild cat and it still is.

You'll still see wild cats near human settlements in Africa which is why they become hybrids having matted with domestic or semi-domestic cats.

Anyway because the cats willingly came to the farmers and hung around allowing the humans to get to know them it is said that the cats domesticated themselves. 

The better description would be that they allowed themselves to be domesticated as a consequence of being in contact with people. And of course the people desired that wild cat domestication. A two-way process.

The leader in the process must be the human. It is still the same now in the human-domestic cat relationship. The human leads and largely dictates the terms of the friendship.

Although there is a large amount of training that goes on by the domestic cat of the human. It is a gradual, informal version of training but equally effective but it once again relies on the agreement and cooperation of the owner.

Is it true that cats only meow at humans?

I am referring to domestic and feral cats. It is not 100% true that cats only meow at humans but you will find that feral cats do not meow at each other very often. This is because the meow is a learned request by the domestic cat living in the human home for something such as food or interaction.  It's been learned over thousands of years. That's what the experts say. It is quite rare for the average person to mingle with feral cats in a colony to check this advice. But it makes sense.

Feral cat colony. All shorthairs. Photo: in public domain.

In fact the domestic cat has refined the meow sometimes so that it sounds a little bit like a baby crying. Some cats have learned that this slightly modified meow is more effective in getting their way.

Long-haired feral cats?

As an aside, you will also rarely see long-haired feral cats. Why is this? It must depend upon how long-standing the colony is. You will get new cats coming into a colony and some of them may be strays having been abandoned and these cats may have long hair. But if feral cats have had time to evolve their family over several generations, within a colony, it is argued they will normally be shorthaired cats because shorthair is more effective when living in the wild.

This, though, must only apply to countries where the climate allows it. Arguably, in very cold climates you should see long-haired feral cats. Perhaps the argument about feral cats normally being shorthaired relates to most parts of the USA, particular the south, where the climate is amenable to a shorthaired coat which requires less maintenance by the cat to keep it in good condition.

Excessively long hair, we know, is beyond the means of a domestic cat to maintain themselves. This is why owners of Persian cats have to support their cat by grooming him or her. This is an anomaly and it would never have happened under normal evolutionary pressure.