Friday Cat Blogging

This story about how the entire feline family tree was recreated from mitochondrial DNA and fossil records scores very high on the Cool Scale.

Comments

[kim]

I believe pumas are rebounding in North America because of the great increase in the deer population.

We have not domesticated the cat. The cat is attracted to us by our tendency to collect vermin. And I don't know what observer of the housecat would claim it had lost any predatory instincts. It's a snake with legs. And about as tameable.

In the relationship, it is humans who are domesticated by the cat.
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[maryrose]

On a recent Discovery Channel special the commentator stated " Remember inside a cat they are always wild."

[Syl]

I don't think the word 'domesticate' can have the same meaning when applied to herbivores vs carnivores.

However both are subject to being eaten by something else. But a cow doesn't consider me a predator and doesn't care much whether I know where it sleeps. My cat, on the other hand, when going for a deep sleep rather than a little catnap, never allows me to see where she has chosen to lie. She always makes sure I'm not observing if she goes into either closet--if she catches my eye, she walks away instead.

The domestication of cats is not so much our not having to be afraid of them as their not having to consider us as another predator. But, for some of them at least and in certain aspects of their lives, they still consider us so.

That is why I think cats are not truly 'domesticated.

[boris]

Cats descend from the tiger family rather than the lion family where cooperative pack hunting would have contributed to domestication as it did from wolves to dogs.

They do seem capable of cooperation under certain circumstances but it's not part of normal day to day life for them.

[Syl]

There's cooperation in taking care of kittens, much like lions. They even manage to take turns watching the little brats while the other moms go out and play. I have no idea how they do that.

[kim]

I love my cat, and she loves me, but mostly because it adds to her glory.
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[Kimberly]

Does anyone other than me find it funny that the photo used for that article shows a kitten who somehow migrated into a clothes dryer? With that kind of misguided curiosity, I'm not surprised that they wandered all over the world; I'm just surprised that they survived it.

[Steve J.]

Cats are liberals.

:-)

[kim]

My cat's got your back at Quidditch.
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[kim]

Just to test who's in charge I spent last Friday trying to get my cat to blog about me. She sneered, and before I knew it, I was blogging about her.
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[kim]

Meow. Miao, mew, mmmrrr. Meow, meow, meow!
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[kim]

She must want something.
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