Scientists have traced the origin of the domestic to five female wildcats living 130,000 years ago. DNA analysis has estabished that Near Eastern wildcats, Felix silvestris lybica (left), and the domestic cat share the same maternal ancestors and are indistinguishable genetically from each other. Andrew Kitchener, of the National Museums Scotland, said: “The genetic evidence would suggest that.... the domestic cat is merely a domesticated version of the Near Eastern wildcat.” Scientists traced the ancestry of all domestic cats alive today back to just five female wildcats that lived in the Fertile Crescent region of what is now Iraq and Syria. The research seems to have solved an old argument as to where the domestic cat originated. The discovery of the maternal ancestors makes the domestic cat much older than previously realised.
Hmm, I had better not tell our cats this news or they may get even haughtier. After all, It’s already a case of “feed me, human vermin!”.
9 comments:
I wonder what sort of timelag there was between the house mouse (Mus musculus) becoming a pest and the wildcat being domesticated.
About 14 minutes?
As if any cat would respond to that Roger!
Your last sentence certainly rings true!
Btw, you're tagged!
Thanks Alison. I will do this over the weekend
Just slightly different proportions than a mackerel tabby short-hair - longer legs and tail to body - suggesting a bit more burst speed, but it would be dead hard not to identify it as a feral house cat.
That's true and the same goes for the Scottish wildcat too, although their tabby markings are rather different to say Robyn's blotching.
Cats only get haughtier when Andrew Lloyd Webber wrote a whole musical about them.
That's true! I bet they want the Egyptians back so they can be worshipped as gods!
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