Cat history: When and where did our pets begin to have them?

“Domestication of cats probably symbiotic relationship among wildcats (subspecies felis silvestris ) and peoples of developing agricultural societies in Mesopotamia,” says the study.

But the authors question whether cats are actually domesticated animals, because still “wild” in many ways and unlike domestic animals such as dogs, they hardly changed their behavior after “joining” humans. Moreover, if a domestic cat is released into the wild, it will likely continue to hunt, survive, and mate. A pet dog will always have a lot more difficulty getting ahead.

The relationship between humans and cats began when cats made the transition from hunter-gatherer to farming.; that is, when they began to settle in certain places from nomadism to till the land. It was about 10,000 years ago.

“Brave lynxes likely benefited from a higher prey density (rodents) near humans, while humans benefited from hunting these vermin,” the study says.

Stating that the genetic diversity and differentiation patterns observed in cats in the research parallel those of other species, especially humans after they became farmers, the study suggests that “human history is written in the DNA of domesticated species.”

pest controllers

This farming allowed people to collect large quantities of food. There were surpluses that attracted mice and rats. As such, it was an ideal place for cats, relentless hunters who came to be seen authentically by humans.pest controllers“.

People’s fascination with such a sensitive and at the same time aloof, cute but self-sufficient animal from the very first moment led them to take cats with them on their migrations across the planet.

To determine when cats became pets for humans, researchers genetic samples of more than a thousand catsmainly of Eurasian origin, in Europe, Asia and Africa.

“They chose what they said.randomly bred cats‘; i.e. wild, stray, domestic, community or barn. In fact ‘examples that continue to be’semi-domesticated‘ from a behavioral perspective, because they can quickly return to the wild.

The outcome of the investigation leaves no room for doubt:The overall structure of the current cat population suggests a single world population.with significant isolation due to distance from peripheral subpopulations”.

“Cat population diversity supports migration patterns of humans and other symbiotic species,” the authors write. Well, cats migrating with humans and colonizing the lands they came from.

This origins According to the results of the study, and as the researchers predicted, the vast majority of domestic cats are concentrated in the eastern Mediterranean basin, then spread to the nearby islands and south along the coast to the Nile valley and from there to dominate the whole world.

A “very special” animal

The genetic study also shows that cats from Western Europe have significant genetic differences from those living in Southeast Asia, for example.

Leslie Lyons, a professor of comparative medicine and feline geneticist at the University of Michigan School of Veterinary Medicine, said that unlike horses and cattle, which at various moments in history witnessed various human-induced domestication events in different parts of the world, cat genetics “strongly supports the theory that cats were domesticated only in Mesopotamia before migrating”.

Lyons, who has been researching cat genetics for over 30 years, a “very special” animal. In addition, an animal that can greatly help researchers by using it as a tool. Biomedical model for studying genetic diseases this affects both cats and humans. For example, polycystic kidney disease, blindness and dwarfism.

“Comparative genetics and precision medicine Playing an important role in the ‘One Health’ conceptThis means that anything we can do to investigate the causes of genetic diseases in cats or how to treat their ailments may one day be useful for treating people with the same diseases,” says Lyons.

In a study published last year, Lyons and colleagues, who created an almost complete assembly of the cat genome, found that: The cat’s genomic structure is more similar to that of humans than of almost any other non-primate mammal.. And this is very helpful when examining common diseases between both species.

Reference report: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41437-022-00568-4

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Contact address of the environment department: crizclimatica@prensaiberica.es