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Domestic Cat History
Credits
This is an article about domestic cat history written in simple
language that is designed to be used, primarily, by students. It is
meant to be an overview. For that
reason any part of this page may be reproduced "as is" (faithfully)
under a creative commons license provided a link back is
provided, please.
Introduction
I have divided up the history of the domestic cat into four sections:
- The beginning of the species Felis catus (domestic
cat);
- The domestication of the wildcat;
- The creation of the cat breeds;
- Selected pages on domestic cat history and search.
It is fair to say that an understanding of the early years of the cat
as a species of animal is not yet completely understood. The scientists
disagree on some of the detail, although they agree the wider picture.
Students should be cautious is making statements that are quoted as
being fact.
The domestic cat is scientifically classified as follows:
| Kingdom: |
Animalia |
| Phylum:
|
Chordata |
| Class: |
Mammalia |
| Order: |
Carnivora |
| Family: |
Felidae |
| Genus: |
Felis |
| Species: |
F. catus |
The classification of cats is also work in progress, please note. A
more detailed and much longer article
on cat history written from a
slightly
different perspective can be seen here.
The Beginning of the Species Felis catus
Cats are carnivores. In scientific classification the "Order" is called
"Carnivora". All carnivores evolved from an extinct
order of mammals called Creodonts.
They were the main carnivores 50-60
million years ago. Creodonts were about the height at the shoulder of a
domestic cat.
Miacids were
primitive carnivores that evolved around 60 million years
ago. They were twice the size of creodonts with more slender legs and
heads. They are believed to have evolved into the modern carnivorous
mammals of the order Carnivora. The miacis was a weasel-like animal:
Wikimedia Commons file.
 The miacids split into two lines,
one of which was the Viverravidae.
The first true cat to
arise from Viverravidae was Proailurus.
These first cat-like
carnivores were half cat and half civet.
The word Proailurus means
"before the cats" in Greek. They existed
about 25-30 million years ago and were the size of a very large
domestic cat. They were not digitigrades (walking on their toes). They
were flat-footed. The best-known species was P lemanensis found in France.
Proailurus gave
way to what are considered to be the first members of
the modern cat family, Pseudaelurus.
They were prehistoric cats. They inhabited Europe, Asia and North
America about 8 to 20 million years ago.
They looked like modern cats. They were digitigrades - they walked on
their toes. They had flexible spines like modern cats; flexible
shoulder blades and tails. An example of a species of Pseudaelurus would be Pseudaelurus lorteti which was the
size of a modern day lynx.
Pseudaelurus evolved into two main groups one of which one was Schizailurus, which in turn evolved
to the Felidae family.
About 12 million years ago, the genus Felis appeared. Felis lunensis (Martelli's Cat)
was
a species that is now extinct and which inhabited Europe about 2.4
million years ago
(during the Pliocene period) and is believed to be the direct ancestor
of today's wildcat. It is believed that it evolved into today's European
wildcat. However the first modern cats were cheetahs.
By the way, in this
context "wildcat" means the small species of wildcat (Felis silvestris). The wildcat
is the wild ancestor of today's domestic cat. See a comparison
between the wildcat and the domestic cat.
This, incidentally, and on a different subject, was the time when the saber
tooth tiger became extinct (about 10,000 years ago).
Domestication of the wildcat
The domestication
of the wildcat was a mutual arrangement (to the benefit of people and
cat alike). The domestication of the cat occurred long after the wild dog
was domesticated. The initial domestication of the wildcat took
place
in what is referred
to as the "Fertile Crescent". This includes Egypt and Cyprus. Although
most evidence of domestication comes from the fertile Nile Delta (see
map below).
The Near Eastern wildcat was,
at its earliest, domesticated some 9,000 years ago, it is believed,
because feline remains were found in a human grave on Cyprus in the
Mediterranean. A cat's tooth from 9,000 BC was found in Jericho, Israel
and remains have been found in the Indus valley near Harappa.
Due to recent DNA analysis it is believed that the domestic cat is a
domesticated version of the Near Eastern wildcat (Felis silvestris lybica).
The Near Eastern wildcat is the African
wildcat. Another small wildcat that inhabited the area was the
Jungle cat (Felis chaus).
The Egyptians of 4,000 BC began to to create settlements and farms,
producing grain silos attracting rodents. The cat had a ready supply of
prey and the farmers had protection from rodents.
Ships cats were also employed to protect cargo and it is through the
transportation of ships cats along trade routes that the domestic cat
was distributed far and wide. in fact the discovery in Cyprus mentioned
above must have been a decendant of a ships cat as there were no
wildcats on Cyprus.
By about 2,000 BC the domestic cat in Egypt was well established. Many
years later the Egyptians began to worship the cat.
The domestication of the cat is self propagating because cat litters
raised in and around people produce cats that are socialized to people
and other animals. In short they are automatically domesticated. Domestication
of the cat has changed the cat.
The Creation of the Cat Breeds
Before about the 1860s there were no cat breeds. Cat breeds
are a single species of domestic cat,
Felis catus. At
that time there
were probably
purebred cats as we would now define them, but there was no one to
formally recognize that fact (meaning no cat associations). There is a
modern example of this, the Bahraini Dilmun cat which could be formally
accepted as a cat breed.
The cat fancy is the community of people anywhere in the world who
breed and show domestic cats. It may also include people who are on the
fringes of that group.
The cat fancy started in the late 19th century in England and in
America at a similar time. The early cat shows in the USA occurred in the 1860s.
At 2011, there is no cat fancy in economically important countries such
as China and India.
In the UK the second national cat show in England was in 1871 at
Crystal Palace. It was a grand affair.
At the outset in the UK the established cat breeds to be bred and shown
were the Persian, Siamese, Abyssinian and British Shorthair on my
estimation. These are long standing cat breeds. In the USA the Maine
Coon was the first purebred cat breed to be shown and bred.
From this start the cat fancy expanded. Breeders sought to create new
cat breeds. Existing cat breeds were "refined" through selective
breeding. The cat fancy is somewhat divided between
traditionalists and breeders who tend to breed to extreme (ultra
breeding). The modern
Siamese is an example of extreme breeding and the Applehead
Siamese is an example of the traditional Siamese. The Persian also
traditional and extreme cats.
New breeds can be created through hybridization
- domestic cat to domestic cat and more rarely domestic
cat to wildcat - or through "discovery". "Discovery" means a cat
that looks different coming to the attention of a cat breeder, perhaps
due to a genetic mutation, who then breeds it and registers it with a
cat association. Examples are the rex cats such as the Devon Rex
and the Sphynx.
Another is the Abyssinian. Discovered cats are imported from the place
of discovery to the main cat fancy markets such as the USA and Europe.
Over the course of the 20th century the cat fancy expanded considerably
both in terms of the number of cat breeds and cat
associations. It is possible to argue that there are too many of
both!
The peak years for the creation of cat breeds was from the 1950s to the
1980s.
The first cat breed was probably the Egyptian Mau
a supposed descendant of the African wildcat. This cat is still a
random bred and feral cat in Egypt. It is the only naturally spotted
cat it is said.
You can see a full time-line on when the cat breeds were created by
clicking on this link. There are over 100 cat breeds in 2011. It is
probable that the market is saturated.
The way the defacto cat breeds developed before the cat fancy existed
is interesting. Research
based on genetics provides insights.
Selected Pages on Domestic Cat History
The early cat breeds provide a good insight into domestic cat history
such as the British
Shorthair, the Maine
Coon, the Siamese,
the Abyssinian,
the Persian
and the American
Shorthair.
There are many more pages on domestic cat history. Please type "cat
history" into the search box:
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Domestic cat
history to Home Page
Domestic cat history - Credit for heading image.
top photo courtesy chatsdumonde. Lower photo copyright Helmi
Flick (a Snowshoe cat).
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