Image: Jane Burton (Getty Images)
In Brief
- Unlike other domesticated creatures, the house cat contributes little to human survival. Researchers have therefore wondered how and why cats came to live among people.
- Experts traditionally thought that the Egyptians were the first to domesticate the cat, some 3,600 years ago.
- But recent genetic and archaeological discoveries indicate that cat domestication began in the Fertile Crescent, perhaps around 10,000 years ago, when agriculture was getting under way.
- The findings suggest that cats started making themselves at home around people to take advantage of the mice and food scraps found in their settlements.
It is by turns aloof and affectionate, serene and savage, endearing and exasperating. Despite its mercurial nature, however, the house cat is the most popular pet in the world. A third of American households have feline members, and more than 600 million cats live among humans worldwide. Yet as familiar as these creatures are, a complete understanding of their origins has proved elusive. Whereas other once wild animals were domesticated for their milk, meat, wool or servile labor, cats contribute virtually nothing in the way of sustenance or work to human endeavor. How, then, did they become commonplace fixtures in our homes?
Scholars long believed that the ancient Egyptians were the first to keep cats as pets, starting around 3,600 years ago. But genetic and archaeological discoveries made over the past five years have revised this scenario—and have generated fresh insights into both the ancestry of the house cat and how its relationship with humans evolved.
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97 Comments
Add Comment"Unlike other domesticated creatures, the house cat contributes little to human survival." The following text contains at last three observations comtradicting this "Key Concept". When your tabby leaves a headless mouse at the back door he/she seems to have a concept that she/he is making a significant contribution.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisOddly, domestic cats seem to have reached the British Isles before the Romans brought them overa dispersal that researchers cannot yet explain.)
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIf cats were in Britain before the Romans then surely the most likely candidates for bringing them would be the Phoenicians. They had established trade routes to Cornwall for the precious metals well before the Romans. Being an eastern Mediterranean people they would be familiar with the cat and know its value on board ship. Any research been done into whether the 'sea people' were known to have carried cats?
Jen Lacey
The article makes at least two errors in fact; that house cats are solitaries, they are not, they are pride type as lions. They bring food back to the group to share with the less competant or less capable hunters. So becoming a member of a human "pride" is not a problem. That cats make no contribution to human survival is also erroronious. On the farm cats are vital to rodent and bird control in grain and garden areas and not as destructive as dogs, and they feed themselves while doing their job. There are also psycological benifits to both cats and humans in their interactions.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWhen humans go into space on a permanet basis they will most likely take cats and not dogs.
Anyone who shares a house with these fickle creatures knows that cats adopted humans as pets long ago, not the other way around. Our opposable thumbs make us useful for getting the lids off food cans, changing litter pans and making sure the back door is opened in a timely fashion. The human/cat burial you show (Cypress, 9,500 years ago) is an obvious case of human sacrifice, so the cat would not have to go without its accustomed room service in the afterlife. The popular bumper-sticker simply states the truth: Dogs have masters: cats have staff.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisJust So ... Rudyard Kipling was pretty close to the mark?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisCats are cool. I cant imagine life without cats around!
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisRT
www.useurl.us/126
"Dogs believe they are Human, Cats Know 'They' are Gods!"
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWhat did the manx cat evolve from, and how come it looks so much like like the domestic cat?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisMy two Burmese cats are very close companions. Every morning we three take a walk and they follow along as well as any dog would. They are affectionate, attentive and very intelligent. But how do I get across to them that they should leave the lizards alone?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisMethinks the article's author has a bias against cats. I am alive today because of my cat(s).
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI call BS on the article.
I agree with fellow cat admirers who've posted -- of COURSE cats contribute to human sustenance. If a cat prevents the loss of X bushels of grain, that's the same as if it produces X bushels of grain, not to mention the benefits of lessneing exposure to vermin-trnasmitted diseases. DUH.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe statement cats contribute virtually nothing&to human endeavor in The Taming of the Cat indicates the authors have never set up housekeeping in the tropics. On the contrary, the pest control services performed by cats is essential to human settlement, food storage and agriculture in the tropics. Upper class Ptolemaic Egyptians may have had the luxury of treating cats as pets, but the cats rise to deification was based on recognizing their contribution to the success of the onion crop and to the health of those who cultivated it.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe statement “cats contribute virtually nothing…to human endeavor” in “The Taming of the Cat” indicates the authors have never set up housekeeping in the tropics. On the contrary, the pest control services performed by cats is essential to human settlement, food storage and agriculture in the tropics. Upper class Ptolemaic Egyptians may have had the luxury of treating cats as pets, but the cat’s rise to deification was based on recognizing their contribution to the success of the onion crop and to the health of those who cultivated it.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI think some people are missing the point on the idea that cats did not contribute. Think of it this way - in ancient times, just like today, a cat wandered by and said "i think I shall adopt these humans and make them mine." We did not encourage or teach them to hunt mice, they were doing it anyway.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAnd the comment regarding ferals living in prides - don't mistake current feral cat colonies for what may have existed when wildcats first decided to live near humans.
I agree with Lauren of Mountain View (where I used to live!) they chose us for our ability to use a can opener.
I think some people are missing the point on the idea that cats did not contribute. Think of it this way - in ancient times, just like today, a cat wandered by and said "i think I shall adopt these humans and make them mine." We did not encourage or teach them to hunt mice, they were doing it anyway.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAnd the comment regarding ferals living in prides - don't mistake current feral cat colonies for what may have existed when wildcats first decided to live near humans.
I agree with Lauren of Mountain View (where I used to live!) they chose us for our ability to use a can opener.
Well this is silly. This person never lived on a farm. Cats kill all sorts of pests and eat mice/rats, which carry disease and eat stored food.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWell this is silly. This person never lived on a farm. Cats kill all sorts of pests and eat mice/rats, which carry disease and eat stored food.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI second the notion that the Phoenicians may have taken cats to Britain, since as early as the Bronze Age they sailed between the eastern Mediterranean and the British Isles. Tin, essential for the manufacture of bronze, was mined in Cornwall. Copper, the other metal used in the alloy, was mined in Cyprus, the island where the early domesticated cat was buried. The Latin term for copper--"metal from Cyprus"--became our word "copper".
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI think if someone were to recreate the conditions of an early farming society it would become apparent that an effective rodent killer was crucial to a society that depended on grain. Like the proverbial Bostonian who votes "often and early", mice and their kin are frequent and prolific breeders, and if they aren't kept in check they will consume and pollute the stored crop.
I've always assumed that cats domesticated themselves, not only because of the fortuitous food source supplied by early farmers, but because of their innate curiousity. Cats love to watch. (One of my three often follows me around the house just to see what I'm doing.) And in big cities where cats don't have access to the outdoors, you usually find them sitting in windows, observing the street scene.
"In fact, they have lost the ability to taste sweet carbohydrates altogether." Can't say our experience bears this out at all. Or else someone needs to explain this fact to the cupcake-stealing bandits.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisOn the farm cats were not pets! they lived outside or in the barns and hay stacks. Not in the house! They made their own living around the farmstead by hunting.They lived in family groups(prides) rarely as solitaries. Some were friendly and others quite wild. They rarely roamed more then 100 yards from the farmstead area.It seems every building area or hay stack yard would have resident cats to pray on the resident and invading pests. Cats definatly adopted humans as a food source area and not provider although free food is good too.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisSome cats like to be around certain people and others do not. Can't say that I blame them.
"Unlike other domesticated creatures, the house cat contributes little to human survival" -- this key concept at the beginning article is contradicted just two bullet points down from it with the statement that domestication began agriculture first began. We have a large vegetable garden and the fact that we are able to eat these vegetables is because of our cat who lounges there all day waiting to attack any rodent, rabbit or bird who dares come near it. I'm sure cats long ago were attracted to the crop plantings (not just the trash heaps) as hunting grounds -- and humans were quick to realize the beneficial contribution of cats' presence to human survival.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWould it be too far-fetched to venture that without the wild cat adopting crop fields & human settlements as hunting grounds 10,000 years ago, the agricultural revolution may never have taken hold?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI think there is a hazy area between whether we domesticated cats or cats adopted us. We have two of these creatures living in our home (brother and sister) and each has their own distinct personalities. The male lives primarily in our yard while the female prefers indoor living. He has brought home many an offering to breakfast and other meals as we have provided meals for them too. Early cultures were sure to see the symbiotic relationship and nurture the relationship as well as cats. Darwinism surely had a hand in bringing these two beings together. However there is one phylosiphy that I believe every cat fully lives by today and always believed that distinguishes them from dogs:
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisA dog thinks: You house me, you feed me, and you love me...
YOU must be a god!
A cat thinks: You house me, you feed me, you love me...
I must be a god!
The article is pure rubbish. Everyone who knows cats knows that they are all descended from Siamese jungle cats, which are now extinct.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAbout the idea of variously-sized cats, like variously-sized dogs: Would YOU like to have a 'pet' cat the size of a lion?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe original cats for the Manx breed probably originated from shipwrecks although they could have been brought in by homebound sailors. For a long period of time ships carrying grain and other perishables had to have a cat on board or their insurance was invalid. Because the Isle of Man is very small and completely isolated, there would have been a limited gene pool available and the population would have become very inbred so that when the tail mutation occurred it would have spread throughout the population. Tail mutations are common in inbred cat populations such as those that occur on islands. Other examples: Japanese Bobtail, Kurilian Bobtail, and the bob-tailed cats found in Cape Breton, Nova Scotia.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThis is hilarious. Sometimes SciAm comes up with a gem. It did again.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI submit that domestication was by children finding young cats in the wild and bringing them "home". Kids love critters, always have. Adults kept them for companionship, still do.
The box on page 74 made me laugh; it is the most ink I've seen saying (in a purely scientific way) that cats are useless!!
I'll disagree, however. My wife grew up on a farm, Their nickname for cat was "mouse hound", so they do, and DID perform tasks "useful to humans." I have this on good authority as some of my inlaws are cavemen.
I believe it is a mutation that has been fixed. Allegedly the first ones came ashore on the Isles of Man from a Spanish ship wrecked after the Armada though this origin myth is very common eg. Ponies in Co. Donegal.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisRodents flourished after cats were killed because they were considered demonic during the Dark Ages.. The bubonic plague resulted. Cats have contributed a lot to the quality of human life. The author should probably stick to dogs.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisCats control rodents, rodents carry disease. Recall The Plague. Thus a very important contribution to humans. A side benefit is their companionship, perhaps not essential, but we mammals are generally social creatures and comfort each other. Isn't that part of being "domesticated"?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisHBW
Cats control rodents, rodents carry disease. Recall The Plague. Thus a very important contribution to humans. A side benefit is their companionship, perhaps not essential, but we mammals are generally social creatures and comfort each other. Isn't that part of being "domesticated"?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisHBW
I agree that small cats able to tolerate close association with humans would have benefited from a good food supply represented by the rodents attracted to cultivated and stored grains as well as human waste dumps. And in return we humans should have welcomed the cats as soon as we saw their contribution to rodent suppression that may well have been important to the emerging grain agriculture. However, one related point seems to have been missed. Ive seen Wild Cats in Africa and the Middle East and they always seem very nervous. In the wild, small cats hunt their mice while they themselves are constantly at serious risk from larger predators. Not only would close association with humans provide small cats with an enhanced food supply, but the humans would also minimize the risk of large predators being close at hand. Lions, Leopards, Caracals, Golden Jackals, plus various other carnivores and even several species of eagles are all serious threats to small cats but most cannot live too close to human settlements. Thus cats that adopted humans would also gain protection in the process. Cats could hunt the rodents attracted to the settlements without constant fear and vigilance against larger predators. My sister noted that the cats acute sense of smell would make it clear to them that there were no large carnivores living with the humans. Apparently the domestication of cats occurred before the same humans domesticated those big, dangerous dogs that cats DO need to fear?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisto S. F. Bailey -- very interesting and well put point regarding the risk minimization for small cats.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe DNA science of this article is superficial, but valid, however the article is largely unsubstantiated and erroneous with regard to the social behavior of domestic cats. They do live in groups if the opportunity is available, and each group has afemale matriarch and a alpha male. Feral cats always form groups, which are referred to as Colonies, and people who care for numerous cats all report this type of heirarchy. In short this article is a cursive summary of significant DNA research, and a fictional editorial on domestic and feral cat social behavior. As for the editorialization of cats as being of no particular benefit, the authors should consider what species controls the 40+ eggs laid by many species of snakes, not to mention rodents, whose only other predators are birds of prey and possums. Actually, the authors should seriously consider going to the University of Nature. Thank You for reading. Gary in Tampa
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe DNA science of this article is superficial, but valid, however the article is largely unsubstantiated and erroneous with regard to the social behavior of domestic cats. They do live in groups if the opportunity is available, and each group has afemale matriarch and a alpha male. Feral cats always form groups, which are referred to as Colonies, and people who care for numerous cats all report this type of heirarchy. In short this article is a cursive summary of significant DNA research, and a fictional editorial on domestic and feral cat social behavior. As for the editorialization of cats as being of no particular benefit, the authors should consider what species controls the 40+ eggs laid by many species of snakes, not to mention rodents, whose only other predators are birds of prey and possums. Actually, the authors should seriously consider going to the University of Nature. Thank You for reading. Gary in Tampa
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI fear that we'll never get beyond speculation and 'just so' stories to explain the cultural origins of the domestic cat, although genetic research offers an objective basis for all theories of their lineage.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisNevertheless, I think we are on firm ground in offering a tentative explanation of their association with humans from a time in which our species started cultivating wheat and storing it. Such stores attracted mice and rats, and cats were tolerated - and soon welcomed and rewarded with scraps of food - when it became clear that they were predators of rodents.
Do not underestimate the damage that unchecked rodents can inflict on grain stores: cats were - speculatively, but probably - a significant contributor to the survival of early human farming settlements.
I note that nomadic pastoralism supported the domestication of the dog, but not the cat: settled agriculture and the problems of rodents in the granaries might seem to be a prerequisite.
Further, the less-well-studied lineage of the ferret, a domesticated relative of the polecat which is now incapable of surviving in the wild - has been traced to the time of the 'neolithic revolution' in Northern Europe. This, too, would seem to coincide with the advent of stored foodstuffs and a need to control rodent pests, a task that ferrets perform almost as well as a cat; but the resident feline of the British Isles, and much of Northern Europe, is the Wildcat - an creature with a fearsome hostility to domestication, even when hand-raised from birth.
This hints that the role of pest-controller is an explanation for the cat's domestication; but I do not see how such hints can be supported by good evidence and move up to being published and respectable research.
I fear that we'll never get beyond speculation and 'just so' stories to explain the cultural origins of the domestic cat, although genetic research offers an objective basis for all theories of their lineage.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisNevertheless, I think we are on firm ground in offering a explanation of their association with humans from a time in which our species started cultivating wheat and storing it. Such stores attracted mice and rats, and cats were tolerated - and soon welcomed and rewarded with scraps of food - when it became clear that they were predators of rodents.
Do not underestimate the damage that unchecked rodents can inflict on grain stores: cats were - speculatively, but probably - a significant contributor to the survival of early human farming settlements.
I note that nomadic pastoralism supported the domestication of the dog, but not the cat: settled agriculture and the problems of rodents in the granaries might seem to be a prerequisite.
Further, the less-well-studied lineage of the ferret, a domesticated relative of the polecat which is now incapable of surviving in the wild - has been traced to the time of the 'neolithic revolution' in Britain. This, too, would seem to coincide with the advent of stored foodstuffs and a need to control rodent pests, a task that ferrets perform almost as well as a cat; but the resident feline of Northern Europe, is the Wildcat - a creature with a fearsome hostility to domestication, even when hand-raised from birth.
(It was much, much later that the tractable domestic cat arrived in Britain, at a date that archaeological evidence links to the emergence of regular sea-trade and the presence of British lead and tin in the broze-age artifacts of ancient Greece).
This hints that the role of pest-controller is an explanation for the cat's domestication; but I do not see how such hints can be supported by good evidence and move up to being published and respectable research.
Any child that brough a wildcat kitten home would rapidly discover that wild animals are dangerous: the European wildcat is ferociously hostile to humans, even when hand-raised from a blind and helpless kitten.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisDomesticated cats are now shown shown by this fascinating research, to be descended from a single lineage of Felis silvestris lybica in the Caucasus and Mesopotamia - and none other, and I have no trouble whatsoever in believing the veracity of this article.
In the unlikely event that you encounter a wildcat in the Highlands of Scotland - and it's very unlikely indeed, as they are both rare and elusive - your best course of action is to turn around and run. The widcat will be Hostile, it's a given, but they might not be in the mood to flay the muscles of your buttocks from your bones (most of us are blissfully unaware that even a 'domestic' cat can do that, but even at his angriest will choose not to) and this is preferable than meeting them face-on and being permanently blinded.
The word 'intractable' doesn't even begin to describe our native Felis silvestris silvestris.
Yeah, I don't think the generalization that cats have lost the ability to taste sweet carbohydrates is correct in all cases. I had a cat who loved sugar. We would come home to find the sugar bowl half licked out and sugar crystals stuck all over his whiskers. Nothing like wearing guilt on your face.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAny information regarding the agricultural centers here in the Americas? Did cats and rats only arrive with the conquistadors?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisCats are naturally asocial at all life stages save two: kittenhood and motherhood. Our friendly housecats live in many ways in a sort of perpetual kittenhood, which gives them the ability to be social with their humans, who they view as something like their mothers. (Some have suggested that they also "channel" mother-cats, not just kittens, when they bring prey to their humans.)
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI know that when my cats are really frightened, such as when they are being taken to the vet, they cry out in a way very much like the way a frightened kitten cries for its mother.
Evolution works on what it has. Instead of inventing a whole new series of social behaviors to enable cats to relate to the human meal ticket, it just calls on the social behaviors that already existthose specific to certain developmental stages.
I've read that Siamese cats in particular may have been (unconsciously) selected for traits that make them resemble human babies even more than other breeds. In particular is their loud, deep voice, which resembles a baby's cry. I've actually mistaken my Siamese's plaintive yowls for my own baby before. Siameses also are somewhat less adapted to non-human living (a maladaptive coat color for hiding from prey and predators, somewhat compromised eyesight [they lack the tapetum lucidem that aids cats' night vision], even mental "issues" stemming from melanin/melatonin in the braintheir coat color comes from a mutation in the melanin gene); therefore they are more dependent on humans; therefore, perhaps, they are more appealing to some humans.
Good point (that the human settlements would also offer wildcats protection from predators). I've seen wildcats hunting in documentaries and they do indeed seem very wary of their surroundings. On another point, the Thai word for "cat" is "maew", which sounds like "meow" to us.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAgreed. I couldn't help but laugh as I my cat licked the syrup off my finger. Like flies to fresh scat, for sweets goes my cat.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisPlus, my neighbor had a cat that liked salad. That was weird.
The meow of a cat sounds very similar to a baby cry, could that have been a mechanism which encouraged humans to adopt the cat? Or did the baby-cry meow evolve in domestic cats? Question: to wild cats have a baby-cry meow?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI disagree on the notion that cats do not contribute. I find that cats provide an excellent source of intelligent and stimulating conversation.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThey are also good for keeping laps warm.
From my experiences, cats are EVIL!
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this:P
Dogs rule!
The authors refer to cross-species hybrid cats as the possible forerunners of some multispecies composite. It may be possible to create these crosses by artificial means, but they would not survive in the wild because most such hybrids are sterile. Like mules and hinnies, tigons and ligers are sterile. Unless they are genetically very close, wildcat-feral cat crosses likewise would be sterile and would represent an evolutionary deadend. Hybrids can't be considered to be new species because they can't produce lineages. Exotic cat hybrids may be attractive for the pet trade but are meaningless from an evolutionary point of view.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe authors refer to cross-species hybrid cats as the possible forerunners of some multispecies composite. It may be possible to create these crosses by artificial means, but they would not survive in the wild because most such hybrids are sterile. Like mules and hinnies, tigons and ligers are sterile. Unless they are genetically very close, wildcat-feral cat crosses likewise would be sterile and would represent an evolutionary deadend. Hybrids can't be considered to be new species because they can't produce lineages. Exotic cat hybrids may be attractive for the pet trade but are meaningless from an evolutionary point of view.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisBookish nonsense. Everyone who has shared a home with Felinis divinis has learned the Homo sapiens is the adopted species.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI call BS also. When agriculture supplanted the hunter-gatherer the cat became important to society. Large stores of grain needed cats to guard them from rodents.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisContributes little to human survivial? Actually, owning a cat reduces the risk of a heart attack by 30%. 30%!!!!
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thishttp://health.usnews.com/usnews/health/healthday/080221/cats-help-shield-owners-from-heart-attack.htm
Living in the modern world has blinded people to the reason why cats became 'popular'. It's not because they're loyal like dogs. No way. No how. It's purely a practical issue.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisCATS KILLED RATS AND MICE WHICH ATE AND CONTAMINATED OUR FOOD. It's as simple as that. SIMPLE.
It is stated "As to when house cats reached the Americas, little is known."
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThat is patent nonsense! There is plenty of documentary evidence although, admittedly, it is scattered over many publications and years. Myself and a colleague have recently collated all the available informatiion into a monograph that simply explains the origins of Felis Catus in the New World.
The Maine Coon - the one American breed of domestic cat - bears a strong resemblance to the Norwegian Forest Cat and it seems quite likely that its forebears were brought to North America by Vikings centuries before Columbus.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisCats will evolve to have horns and carry pitchforks... cats are pure evil.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisCats > Dogs.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAs I recall, ancient Celtic law placed a very high value on cats as mousers. A wrongfully killed cat, perfect in all its "points", was worth a pile of grain covering the animal dangled by its tail so that its claws touched ground. Obviously this places more value on bigger cats but is still a substantial amount of food and labour for even a regular-sized barnyard terror. Perhaps the justice seen in the deal was a rough estimate of the grain such a cat would protect!
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI would say I too am alive because of my cats, but that's not the sort of survival value a biologist would look for in terms of evolutionary theory. Granted, my being alive means I have the potential to reproduce, greater than if I were dead, but evolution works on populations rather than individuals. I have not evolved by remaining alive, and on top of that I stand a good chance of passing on the traits that could have caused my premature death (since they run widely in my family).
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisCould be the fats and eggs in the cake and fats in the frosting. My kitten just came down to beg a bite of cake while I was reading that particular statement. She's a die-hard meat lover and won't take much besides (have had and met cats that love[d] various fruits), but between the sugar and the fat something like that is a big packet of energy in a small space. This is probably why jaguars like avocados.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe British Isles could have received cats from the Pheonicians. If not, the Greeks got their tin from the Cornwall area as well. There was also trade with North Africa for tin. Egypt had bronze (copper and tin) before iron.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAt any rate, the fact that cats arrived in Britain before the Romans is no surprise. It is surprising that the domestic cat variety had not traveled further north in Europe in advance of the Romans. After all, there was farming and grain storage - the driver for our adoption of cats.
Phoenicians. Hm. Or could the presence of cats in the British Isles pre-dating Roman arrival be due to Celts, who were also eager traders?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI was surprised that the aspect of disease suppression through rodent control was not considered. It would be interesting to plot plague [or other rodent-born disease] rates against cat densities.
The adult cat is also very close to the size and shape of a human baby.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI believe cats are useful to human survival, and ancient people knew that, as an example, the aforementioned Bastet, she was a good goddess, I believe her assignments on the pantheon were fertility, caring and mother like attributes, given because cats hunted down the plagues from silos, "cared" for people and kept illness (like the plague) at bay.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIf I happened to be a creationist (which I ain't), I'd quote the story that Manx cats came from a particularly lazy cat that got his tail chopped off by Noah's ark door, (hey, they believe the world is only 6000 years old!) but reality is that is an inbreed mutation, (lethal when two pure Manx breed, their offspring dies).
My thing is that with my cat, she tells me that she loves me, and relies on me for everything...Ironically, she shows a supposedly dog-only trait: Loyalty.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisShe has actually defended me before, it was funny, but the ex-boyfriend has never forgotten it.
I am in essence her mother.
So, yes, cats are essential, plus I make her kill the icky roaches that come in from the oak trees...ew...
I am not an animal nutritionist but I am a veterinarian and have treated cats for over 20 years. I enjoyed this article but do take exception to the statement that domestic cats have "lost the ability to taste sweet carbohydrates altogether". This is catagorically incorrect. Humans enjoy the convenience and lower cost of feeding dry cat food to their feline pets. Unfortunately, being carnivores and metabolically keto-adapted to assimulate protein and fat, they tend to develop obesity and Type 2 Diabetes when on dry food. The pancreas of a true carnivore, such as a domestic cat, functions best when the animal eats a diet no richer than 7% carbohydrate. If the the carbohydrate level in the diet is higher than 7%, the carnivore will switch from being keto-adapted (using protein and fat as the primary fuel source) to glucose dependant (sugar as the primary fuel source). The keto-adapted lion will eat a large low carbohydrate diet and metabolize it slowly over several days. The domestic cat needs to eat several small carbohydrate rich meals daily to feed their glucose dependant metabolism. The typical dry cat food is anywhere from 23-28% carbohydrate (it is very difficult to manufacture dry food less than 20% carbohydrate without the food becoming soggy with excess oil). Once the average domestic cat has been exposed to dry food (usually at a young age), it is very difficult to eliminate dry food from its diet and feed it a canned diet rich in protein and less than 7% carbohydrate. It is true that cats are resistent to change in their diet and if glucose dependant on dry food are also perpetually hungry (like their masters!), but I know that these cats are also enamored with a dry diet which has 4 times the carbohydrate level as most canned foods. I treat many obese and diabetic cats by keto-adapting them on low carbohydrate diets. If I am lucky enough (and the client is patient enough!) to get the patient to exclusively eat a low carbohydrate diet, these same keto-adapted cats will gladly switch back to their dry food if given the chance. It must be the sweetness of the the sugar rich dry food. Complex carbohydrates found in dry cat foods are still sugars and are relatively sweet when compared to fat and protein.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisSincerely,
Doug Freeman, DVM
Adult wild or feral cats do not generally meow. Meowing is a verbalization that is relegated mostly to kittenhood and used as a signal to the "mother" that the kitten is frightened or hungry. This is another reason that it's believed that adult domesticated cats live in a state of stunted kittenhood.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAs to the grain argument, I'm surprised that no one's mentioned that while dogs may be less adept at killing pests and were domesticated for other reasons such as hunting and herding they will and do kill rodents and other pests that could potentially destroy grains. While cats may have had a greater hand in the proliferation of an agricultural lifestyle by protecting grain stores people did live, trade and flourish before cats were domesticated.
@Zymurgy--
Wouldn't it be expected that no matter what the diet change that a cat would continue to eat? I've lived with probably over 40 or 50 cats, both inside and outside cats, and I've never seen one pass up a meal whether it be a tasty little mole, a bowl of dry food, scraps from the table or a tin of fancy wet food.
I simply cannot agree in any way with the concept "cats are obligate carnivores, meaning they have a limited ability to digest anything but meata far rarer menu item. In fact, they have lost the ability to taste sweet carbohydrates altogether." My last cat was a complete ice cream crazy. Ate it until he got cavities, got taken to the dentist. Stayed away from it for a week. Went back to it. I'd laugh in the face of anyone telling me he couldn't taste it. Back to the drawing board.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThere are fats in ice cream. But what is the reason why a cat would like cantaloupe or watermelon if they do not taste the sweet?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisDear Scientific American readers,
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIm excited to see so many people excited about the description of wildcat domestication and am gratified that many people seem to have actually read the article, and read it closely, rather than just skim the illustrations.
A number of good questions and comments have been posted over the last month. Since the next issue is about to hit the shelves, presumably curtailing the comments here, I will try to address the major points by category over the next week or so as I find time. I will also try to provide some additional reading for those interested in pursuing particular aspects.
First a few of the less involved comments:
Nile suggests that the role of pest controller is the explanation for wildcat domestication and follows by saying that there is no good evidence for such a suggestion. I agree entirely, and this point is in fact one of the major thrusts of the article -that wildcats exploited the new anthropogenic environment of the Neolithic, rather than humans exploiting wildcats for any perceived good.
S. F. Bailey correctly points out that part of the initial attraction wildcats would have had to human urbanations was the predator free environment town provided.
For a bit more on this, and wildcat domestication generally, see Driscoll et al., 2009 From wild animals to domestic pets, an evolutionary view of domestication. PNAS Vol. 106 Suppl. 1 pp 9971-9978
Way2ec It is reported that Columbus had cats (and presumably rats) on his ships when he discovered the New World, though when sustaining cat populations were first established in the Americas is unknown. See (TODD 1977) for an interesting read on domestic cat dispersals and (SMITH 1995) for discussion of agriculture centers, including the Americas.
SMITH, B. D., 1995 The emergence of agriculture. Scientific American Library : Distributed by W.H. Freeman, New York.
TODD, N. B., 1977 Cats and Commerce. Scientific American 237: 100-107
Thanks again for your interest,
Carlos Driscoll
Can cats taste sweet?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisA few readers have taken exception to the statement that cats cannot taste sweet. There is a lot of literature out there and it can be difficult to keep up with some of the more abstruse research that goes on but a great, if under-reported, bit of research was done by a group at the Monell Chemical Senses Center in Philadelphia. Their finding were published in 2005 (Xia et al.) and their conclusion was that , in cats, “A functional sweet taste receptor heteromer cannot form, and thus the cat lacks the receptor likely necessary for detection of sweet stimuli. This molecular change was very likely an important event in the evolution of the cat’s carnivorous behavior.” Even before the molecular mechanism had been elucidated, it was reported in the late 1980’s that “No system has been found in the cat that responds to sugars at any behaviourially meaningful concentration” (see Bradshaw et al. and refs therein).
Felids are the only true carnivores in the order Carnivora, as odd as that may sound. True carnivory is not just a food preference, it’s a metabolic adaptation that includes dietary requirements for nutrients found only in animal tissue and that in cats precludes the efficient use of other sources of energy.
An interesting note regarding cantaloupe and watermelon – these fruits are believed to mimic meats, perhaps by a high ‘umami’ stimulating amino-acid component, presumably as a way of attracting canids who can act as seed dispersers. Felids are likely attracted to the same ‘meaty’ smell or taste.
For sweet taste molecular dynamics see: Xia Li, et al. 2005 Pseudogenization of a Sweet-Receptor Gene Accounts for Cats’ Indifference toward Sugar. PLoS Genetics. Vol 1, Issue 1
The article can be found online at: http://www.plosgenetics.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pgen.0010003
For more on what it means to be an obligate carnivore see: Bradshaw et al., 1996 Food selection by the domestic cat, an obligate carnivore Comp. Biochem. Physiol. Vol 114A, No. 3, pp 205 - 209
Carlos Driscoll
Regarding a link between Maine Coon cats and the Norwegian Forest cat, I’ll reprint my response to a similar query – is the Maine Coon the descendant of a native North American wildcat crossed with domestic cats brought by the Vikings?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI wrote: There are two parts to this story- one, that there was a native cat here that might have bred with domestics, and two, that Vikings brought cats to North America.
Presently, the only native North American small cats north of Texas are the bobcat and the lynx. There is no fossil evidence of other small cats in North America during the last 10,000 years. Given what we know of felid biology it is unlikely that any significant natural hybridization ever occurred between either the lynx or the bobcat and Felis silvestris due to the size difference, behaviourial differences, and the evolutionary distance between them. While hybrids between domestic cats and bobcat have evidently been produced by breeders, this must be under rigidly controlled conditions that could not obtain in nature. Felis silvestris, the species to which domestic cats belong, is firmly placed in the Old World by fossil evidence; there is no chance that silvestris existed here in the New World, so the possibility of a cat closely related to our domestics already being in North America can be ruled out. A recently published phylogeny of all the cat breeds, including the Maine Coon, has found they place close to British Shorthairs, Ragdolls, Russian Blues and American Shorthairs with no signs of hybridization with anything more exotic. Given all of that, I’d have to say the ‘native cat’ part of the story is myth.
Maine Coon, part II
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe question of Vikings transporting cats here is more difficult to answer. However, if cats had been brought here by Vikings one might expect Maine Coons to be most closely related to a cat from where Vikings originate (and I suspect this story originates in the physical similarity between the Maine Coon and the Norwegian Forest cat). That the molecular phylogeny indicates a closer relationship between Maine Coons and British Shorthairs, among others, rather than the NFC provides no support for a hypothesis linking the two cat breeds. It does not, however, disprove that Maine Coons came via the Vikings. But….We now know that there are several genetic variants of the gene that causes long hair in cats and they have been identified. Though both Maine Coon cats and Norwegian Forest cats have long hair they each have different mutations accounting for them. Thus, on the basis of genetic evidence we can rule out any any link between Maine Coon cats and Norwegian Forest cats.
The papers I reference are:
Menotti-Raymond et al., 2008 Patterns of molecular genetic variation among cat breeds Genomics 91; 1-11
Kehler et al., 2007 Four Independent Mutations in the Feline Fibroblast Growth Factor 5 Gene Determine the Long-Haired Phenotype in Domestic Cats Journal of Heredity 98 (6) 555-566.
Carlos Driscoll
Phonecians brought cats to Iron-Age Britain before the Romans?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAny suggestion that Phonecians brought cats to Britain must remain speculative as there is no genuine evidence for it, however it certainly is a good guess. In fact, the original draft of the article had all manner of hemming and hawing about possibilities, including the Phonecian connection, but we were unhappy with the lack of certitude and cut the whole paragraph for clarity and readability. I will again reprint a portion of a letter I wrote in response to a similar question.
I wrote:
The earliest claim for domestic cats in Britain is from Gussage All Saints in Dorset which was occupied over the second half of the first millennium BC. But the associated problems are many. One is determining that the cats found in Iron-age Britain are really domestic cats (The Iron-age in Britain ends with Roman occupation so the two are somewhat interchangeable terms). We are currently trying to extract DNA from such remains but are having a hard go of it. Even having done that, the problem is not entirely solved since there is a chance, one I discount but still a chance, that domestication occurred independently in Europe from the European subspecies, and this would make it very difficult to sort out. (we don't yet have a marker for domestication, per se, but only for geographical origin. Finding a Near Eastern cat in Iron age Britain would be most easily explained were it domestic, but sorting a domesticated European wildcat from a wild European wildcat is currently not possible.)
Importantly, house mice are also found in the Gussage site. This is interesting because house mice come from the Levant but don't travel over land so very easily. Moreover, no one would have set out to domesticate them- they must have come by boat, heightening speculation that Phoenicians brought them and cats both. Additionally, chickens, which are of south-east Asian origin, are found in pre-Roman Britain and they too most probably came by sea from the Mediterranean and, if I had to guess, with Phoenician seafarers.
Carlos Driscoll
I'm curious about Maine Coon cats. They show many traits of wildcat-ness: large size, tips and tufts in their ears, tufted paws. Legend is that when 16th century English came to settle in Maine, they found Maine Coons already there. There are several myths of origin, but the one I think is most likely is that Maine Coon cat ancestors came over with the Vikings ca 1000 AD (MCs closely resemble the Norwegian Forest cat ), survived when the Vikings did not, and interbred with native new world felines. Any thoughts on this? I have cohabited with a Maine Coon myself for past 12 years -- he's a very intelligent, affectionate, loyal guy with a fierce sense of his "personal boundaries," as we say. He is indeed less like your average house cat than a wild cat who likes to cuddle.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThank you for detailed reply (and interesting article!). So the Maine Coon cat's origins are mysterious, it would seem. Check out those lynx-like ears. If they have no wildcat genes, how did they retain wildcat ears?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI love cats. I loved this informative article on them. I believe they are misunderstood as being selfish and arrogant. Like humans, some cats are less affectionate, while others are demonstrative.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI was confused because of the use of the term "evolution" in the title of the article. I don't see any reference to evolution in the article except for the phrase "relationship with humans evolved" which is entirely different than the title inference. Is this just advertising come-on?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisProblem of this article, just like other similar ones, is drew so many conclusion out of so little fact. All of this imaginations are coming from a simple DNA sequence test and reveals 97% of all cats DNA are the same. If this is science, I wonder what is nonsense.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisProblem of this article, just like other similar ones, is drew so many conclusion out of so little fact. All of this imaginations are coming from a simple DNA sequence test and reveals 97% of all cats DNA are the same. If this is science, I wonder what is nonsense.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI find gently scolding my pair generally works the trick ...
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI find gently scolding my pair generally works the trick ...
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisOnly western -cultured persons could possible imagine that the cat did not/does not contribute to human survival! If you'd ever lived in a building in which no cats are allowed and had the dreadful experience of being overrun by an explosion of mice (and consider there was no "decon" until quite recently) you'd know what a truly ignorant and perhaps stupid conclusion the author(s) reached! As one who did have that experience, and now lives mouse-free thanks to the mere presence of a cat, and is joyful not to find mouse droppings on my dishes, food, in my drawers, shoes, clothes, and not to be greeted by a leaping tiny rodent whenever I open a door or a drawer, I salute the cat and say the authors need to try to find some common sense as well as get themselves checked out for brain failure!
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI have 2 cats, both are 19 years old. One of them will eat anything she see's me eat, she will beg for table scraps. My other cat will not eat anything but her Meow Mix. My 2 cats live in peaceful harmony with my 20 year old dog and my 23 year old cockatiel. Since our pets take so many of their cues from us, it's pretty hard to generalize animal behaviour by just observing our own pets.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAre cats social?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisCommon everyday language is sometimes incapable of making as sharp a point as more technical language. And the terminology associated with domestication, particularly of the wildcat, is often very loosely defined. A particular sentence seems to have caused confusion, one where we write that “Cats, in contrast, are solitary hunters…”. The point is that wildcats were unlikely candidates for domestication for this and several other reasons. Of course rather than the more general and inclusive ‘cats’ what should have appeared in print is the more specific “Wildcats, in contrast, are solitary hunters…”.
A ‘wildcat’ refers to Felis silvestris that has not been genetically modified through contact with humans or human environments. A ‘domestic’ cat is one of the lineage of Felis silvestris that has been selected (naturally or artificially) for ‘tameness’. This selection (essentially for a lowered response threshold) results in heritable genetic changes which predispose these cats to behaviors that can lead to a close relationship with humans. A ‘feral’ cat is a domestic cat that is living to a greater or lesser degree independently of direct human care. Feral cats are genetically domestic but have not been socialized. They may live in the ‘wild’, hunting natural prey, on the periphery of human activity, or as street cats in the center of our cities. ‘Cats’ of course can refer to any of the above categories without distinction.
Sociality
Similarly, a technical definition of sociality is more restricted than the colloquial usage, by which people often mean some form of ‘group living’. However, the structure of sociality transitions in a continuum from solitary to aggregations to social to sociality with cooperative interaction. In cats this structure is heavily influenced by resource availability.
It is important to remember that most cats in the world are feral (not attached to a household and random-breeding). And unless they are feeding from a point food source (perhaps a kind lady or perhaps living at a dump) feral cats sourcing their own food are solitary (GENOVESI 1995). Because people are most exposed to well-fed, socialized house cats it is possible to develop a somewhat exaggerated perception of the degree to which domestic cats in general are social.
Sociality cont'd.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisHaving said that, domestic cats are without question unique. Indeed, as noted elsewhere (DRISCOLL et al. 2009), “cats are the only domesticate that is social under domestication yet solitary in the wild” and this transition is one of the most interesting and potentially informative features of feline research. However, even well socialized domestic cats do not achieve the level of sociality seen in lions. Sociality in domestic cats is limited to females (in a structure analogous to a lion pride) but, while male lions form coalitions, male domestic cats are essentially lone agents. Domestic cats form colonies only in the presence of clumped food resources and importantly do not do so spontaneously when feeding on wild prey or when resources are otherwise dispersed. Wildcats of course are completely asocial, even when an abundance of food is offered. On the other hand, a lion’s ‘default’ seems to be sociality, and they have to be environmentally stressed to a fair degree before prides disband. (Interestingly, new research suggests pride formation may have more to do with group security than food provisioning.) And perhaps most notably, lions hunt cooperatively: a complex, coordinated task requiring an understanding of another’s intentions, something no other felid species or subspecies does. And we note that, with the exception of provisioning dependant offspring, neither lions nor domestic cats bring food back to share with others in the pride or colony. So, along the continuum outlined above, domestic cats fall somewhere in between badgers (which live communally but interact randomly) and lions or pack-forming canids (in which males and females establish stable social orders and hunt cooperatively).
I hope this clarification helps readers to understand the passage a little better. A good resource for those interested in reading more about domestic cats is The Domestic Cat, The Biology of its Behaviour. Second edition. 2000 D. Turner and P. Bateson, eds (TURNER 2000). In particular, the chapters on group-living by Macdonald, Yamaguchi and Kerby and on hunting behaviour by Fitzgerald and Turner.
Utility
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAnother point engendering discussion is the actual and perceived utility domestic cats provide. With this in mind I’d like to mention some points regarding the trainability of cats to a task, which may have an influence on a cat’s practical use.
Throughout our research we mean utility in the sense of ‘intended for practical use’. Keeping in mind that domestic cats have never been bred for any ‘behavior’ in the sense of a utilitarian task such as shepherding, retrieving, guarding or even pulling, it is not unexpected that they should today have little predisposition for directed action. Contrast this with some domestic dogs which have been strongly selected over their entire development for an innate ability to learn complicated tasks. Sociality and trainability seem to be related through an animal’s sensitivity to the feelings and intentions of others. Several interesting papers have come out recently that shed light on the intricacies of non-human perception and a few on dogs and foxes are particularly insightful (see: HARE et al. 2002; HARE 2005; RANGE et al. 2009). Dogs, in Range’s words, show “high sensitivity to elements of human behavior that are directed both toward them and to others, and some understanding of human intentions” and “clearly show effective, complex and elaborate cooperation with humans” (RANGE et al. 2009). This goes far beyond either classical or operant conditioning (like clicker training) and has clearly heritable components (thus a border collie can learn to herd but is poor at retrieving, while a Labrador is great at retrieving but is practically useless for herding). In contrast, domestic cats do not intuit the intentions of others, be they human or feline, to the extent that dogs do and breed-specific behaviors in cats are very limited in comparison to dogs. This less developed sensitivity seems to hinder a cat’s ability to process the directions that are required for ‘obedience’ and may preclude a sociality as developed as that found in canids. Consider how many strictly verbal commands your cat appropriately responds to (and I don’t mean ‘lay down; nap’ or ‘ignore me’!), then consider further how reliably a cat can read communicative gestures (such as pointing). The sociocognitive evolution seen in canids does not seem to have been stressed to the same degree through wildcat domestication. (It’s not that dogs are ‘better’ that cats, it’s just that the dog/cat comparison is familiar to most people and is an apt and accessible one. And, just for the record, I’m a cat person myself.)
Mousing?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisLeaving for the time being the notion of a cat’s utility being a squeezable companion or an anchor for the bed comforter, we have to consider what purpose a cat might have served to a Neolithic agriculturalist struggling to survive. Wildcats were sporadically food and fur-bearers but it is difficult to imagine much effort being dedicated over time simply to have a pet. And while catching mice would clearly predispose people towards cats*, who would naturally view them as allies against mice and rats, mousing is not a prerequisite for domestication of the wildcat – tameness alone sufficed. Why do we think this? For one because there is no reason to believe captive breeding (or the attendant artificial selection) occurred during initial domestication. We have written elsewhere that “Wildcat domestication occurred through a self-selective process in which behavioral reproductive isolation evolved as a correlated character of associative mating coupled to habitat choice for urban environments” (DRISCOLL et al. 2009). This dense and technical wording simply means we didn’t bring cats into our homes, them brought themselves. Thus, wildcat domestication was a process of Natural rather than Artificial selection. Chasing mice (or string or a laser pointer) is an instinctive behavioral attribute of the cat; a ‘fixed action pattern’ in the language of behavioralists. This means that cats will chase mice (and seem productive) without any training or influence from humans. All early farmers had to do was tolerate cats being around and the cats did the rest. For their part, all wildcats did was to evolve a tolerance for people, which facilitated their living amongst us and – voila! - they had adapted to their new niche. The habit of cats to catch rats and mice was simply an attractive feature of the animal, much as we suppose a soft coat or a temperate and playful disposition was. This situation is in stark contrast to the barnyard animals, all of which provide some measurable utility in the form of meat, traction, milk or fiber. It is difficult to imagine a domestic cow if not for food. Remember too that mice and rats, along with sparrows and likely pigeons, also domesticated themselves, and by the same mechanism by which wildcats are hypothesized to have done. These animals, wildcats included, exploited the new anthropogenic environment resulting from the suite of changes brought about by the Neolithic Revolution (sedentism, agriculture, and urbanization).
Mousing cont'd
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this* It is important to point out that cats don’t even have to catch many mice, they just need to SEEM to be catching many mice and this perception alone will convince people of their value.
So, do cats actually catch mice?
Well, yes, of course they catch mice. But cats seem to catch many more mice and rats than people ever thought were there to begin with, and so their general effectiveness might be overestimated. Felis silvestris is a broad spectrum predator, not a mouse specialists per se (in fact the preferred prey of wildcats is rabbits if available) and is not as effective as people would like to think at vermin population control. Yet some have gone so far as to say the rise of civilization is DUE TO cats controlling vermin. This clearly hyperbolic assertion seems to overlook the fact that agriculture developed in China, South and Central America and New Guinea without the assistance of cats (thus, cats are neither necessary nor sufficient to account for the rise of agriculture), and ignores the other mechanisms that people had developed for limiting vermin related waste, including architectural innovations, the development of rat catching dog breeds and the domestication of the polecat (weasel), which seems to have been domesticated explicitly for hunting small mammals. If cats could eliminate mice and rats certainly there would be none to be found in Rome today!
Mouse/rat populations will tend to be cyclical, and the cat population will follow the cycle rather than drive the cycle. If you have taken an ecology course you are probably familiar with the snowshoe hare/lynx population cycles that so eloquently make the point. Only when prey numbers are low is the population held in a ‘predator pit’. It has been documented (in England) that domestic cats can maintain a well managed farm free of rats once the rats have been cleared by other means (ferrets, dogs, traps, poisoning and gassing and better management of rat cover) but that cats have almost no ability to clear a farm if the rats are already established (ELTON 1953). Early Neolithic agriculturalists would most likely have had more trouble initially clearing rats than a mid-twentieth century English farmer and would subsequently bear the burden of a resident rat population.
Mousing cont'd 3 and some references
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIt has also been suggested that the plagues afflicting Europe during the Middle Ages are a consequence of a reduction in cat numbers during that time and a supposed rise in rat numbers. However, there is no serious literature supporting a role for cats in suppressing or preventing the spread of the plague anywhere. The susceptibility of the populace at the time had more to do with the Little Ice Age, Great Famine, and resulting changes in socio-economic structure, living patterns and hygiene, and also the prevalence of the Black Rat, Rattus rattus. The plagues ended after the climate improved, promoting a restoration of agricultural productivity, more dispersed living quarters and, perhaps most importantly, the Black rat was displaced by the Brown rat (Rattus norvegicus), which is not as susceptible to infection. The inability of cats to control plague is anecdotally highlighted by noting that the plague also struck places where cats were always in high density, like Persia (where 30% of the population died) or Egypt (40%). Simply having cats around did nothing to stop the disease’s advance. So again, cats are neither necessary nor sufficient to explain either the rise or fall of plague occurrence.
References
DRISCOLL, C. A., D. W. MACDONALD and S. J. O'BRIEN, 2009 From wild animals to domestic pets, an evolutionary view of domestication. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A 106 Suppl 1: 9971-9978.
ELTON, C. S., 1953 The use of cats in farm rat control. British Journal of Animal Behavior 1: 151-155.
GENOVESI, P., BESA, M. AND TOSO, S., 1995 Ecology of a feral cat Felis catus population in an agricultural area of northern Italy. Wildlife Biology 1: 233-237.
HARE, B., M. BROWN, C. WILLIAMSON and M. TOMASELLO, 2002 The domestication of social cognition in dogs. Science 298: 1634-1636.
HARE, B., PLYUSNINA, I., IGNACIO, N., SCHEPINA, O., STEPIKA, A., WRANGHAM, R., TRUT, L., 2005 Social Cognitive Evolution in Captive Foxes is a Correlated By-Product of Experimental Domestication. Current Biology 15: 226-230.
RANGE, F., L. HORN, Z. VIRANYI and L. HUBER, 2009 The absence of reward induces inequity aversion in dogs. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A 106: 340-345.
SMITH, B. D., 1995 The emergence of agriculture. Scientific American Library : Distributed by W.H. Freeman, New York.
TODD, N. B., 1977 Cats and Commerce. Scientific American 237: 100-107.
TURNER, D. C. A. B., P. P. G., 2000 The Domestic Cat : the biology of its behaviour. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, UK ; New York.
I greatly enjoyed "the Taming of the Cat". However, I must admit that I was astonished by the utter witlessness of the assertion toward the end of the first paragraph: "cats contribute virtually nothing in the way of sustenance or work to human endeavor".
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWithout the "house cat" to control the depredations of rats and mice it is very unlikely that human agregations greater than a farming village would ever have happened. The reason for this is that the "house cat" made a vast difference in the efficiency of storing food. So, the common house cat is the
mandatory precondition to large towns and cities and the development of industries.
An historical indication of the importance of the house cat was the old English law about killing a farmer's cat. The killer was required to pay the farmer a pile of grain high enough to completely cover the corpse of the cat when hung by its tail so that the nose touched the ground.
Yes, mankind has developed other technologies to store food in the last 2 centuries. But, without the common house cat, man never would have been able to live in large enough towns and cities to allow the development of the industrial complex whose fruits we enjoy now.
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Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisKeep in mind that the author mentions "virtually nothing",rather than "nothing", which leaves room for a certain occurrences as you mentioned.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisCorrection: That last line should properly read; 'I KNOW I am a GOD!
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThere are other mousing animals: ferrets, small hawks and similar birds of prey, small dogs; terriers, dachshunds and other short-legged dogs of that ilk. The Romans had Health laws requiring the ownership,and care, of cats, ferrets, mouser dogs and birds of prey.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisBeen done! Spot Areas during the Great Plagues that despite the CHURCH'S ban on cats survived, because these populations had kept dachshunds and/or ferrets.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisCats contributing to human survival and a cat thinking it's contributing are two different things.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI used to love this magazine when in college, but that was a couple of decades ago. Needless to say, the inanely ignorant and UN-scientific comment "cats contribute virtually nothing in the way of sustenance or work to human endeavor" is more than disappointing for such a long-respected periodical of its title.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI should probably clarify that this is NOT an emotional response - I don't even own cats at present, and although I think about adopting one at times, I have no delusions on where humans stand with cats. I do find them to be fascinating creatures, but I'm not one to anthropomorphize their thought processes, as if they could truly love their owners with any human sense of that emotion.
While I have little direct experience in exploiting the labor value of animals, it can be observed by any that the ancient world had no place for any creature which did not serve a valued purpose, and the cat's value in preventing disease by killing granary rodents was not lost on the Egyptians. They are still useful for that purpose in protecting human health with a lot of people around the world, so where's the validity in the statement "...nothing in the way of sustenance or work..."?
Cats protected the population from disease, they had a lot of grace and they were, in their own way, very companionable, and for that trifecta the ancient Egyptians worshiped them as gods. They still have the attitude of gods, which still offends some people (mostly Christians), but there is no place in a scientific journal for such Dark Ages prejudice.
Needless to say, I will not be buying a subscription to this sadly un-scientific rag any time in the near future. That they run teasers like this to make the readers pay says all about the ethics of this one. The web should be only a completely free information source, supported by advertising. Oh, on the argument that it may be corrupted by big business funding: A long-established magazine which is still good will always attract readers, the question is does any business want to give up the opportunity to pitch its ads just because they don't like what some of the writers said?