"Women and cats will do as they please, and men and dogs should relax and get used to the idea."

- Robert A. Heinlein

The Evolution Of The Cat

Introduction

Himalayan, chocolate point.

Also called house cat, (species Felis catus), domesticated member of the family Felidae, order Carnivora. Like all felids, domestic cats, the smallest members of the family, are characterized by supple, low-slung bodies, finely molded heads, long tails that aid in balance, and specialized teeth and claws that adapt them admirably to a life of active hunting. Domestic cats possess other features of their wild relatives in being basically carnivorous, remarkably agile and powerful, and finely coordinated in movement.

It is noteworthy that the ancestors of the other common household pet, the dog, were social animals that lived together in packs in which there was subordination to a leader, and the dog has readily transferred its allegiance from pack leader to human master. The cat, however, has not yielded as readily to subjugation. Consequently, the house cat is able to revert to complete self-reliance more quickly and more successfully than most domesticated dogs.

Origin and history of cats

The "cat pattern," established very early in the evolution of modern mammals, was a successful one: early cats were already typical in form at a time when the ancestors of most other modern mammalian types were scarcely recognizable. They first appeared in the Early Pliocene epoch (5.3 to 3.4 million years ago), and they have continued with remarkably little change into modern times.

Domestication

Abyssinian, red, or sorrel

Although its origin is hidden in antiquity, the domestic cat has a history that dates nearly 3,500 years to ancient Egypt. There are no authentic records of domestication earlier than 1500 BC, but it may have taken place sooner. Although the cat was proclaimed a sacred animal in the 5th and 6th dynasties (c. 2465-c. 2150 BC), it had not necessarily been domesticated at that time. It is probable that the Egyptians domesticated the cat because they realized its value in protecting granaries from rodents. Their affection and respect for this predator led to the development of religious cat cults and temple worship of cats.

Cats have long been known to other cultures. Wall tiles in Crete dating from 1600 BC depict hunting cats. Evidence from art and literature indicates that the domestic cat was present in Greece from the 5th century BC and in China from 500 BC. In India cats were mentioned in Sanskrit writings around 100 BC, while the Arabs and the Japanese were not introduced to the cat until about AD 600. The earliest record of cats in Britain dates to about AD 936 when Howel Dda, prince of south-central Wales, enacted laws for their protection.

Persian, cream and white bicolour

No matter what their origins, all canids have certain common characteristics. They are mammals that bear live young. The females have mammary glands, and they suckle their offspring. The early breeds had erect ears and pointed or wedge-shaped muzzles, similar to the northern breeds common today. Most of the carnivores have similar dental structures, which is one way paleontologists have been able to identify them. They develop two sets of teeth, deciduous ("baby") teeth and permanent teeth.

Even though all cats are similar in appearance, it is difficult to trace the ancestry of individual breeds. Since tabbylike markings appear in the drawings and mummies of ancient Egyptian cats, present-day tabbies may be descendants of the sacred cats of Egypt.
The Abyssinian also resembles pictures and statues of Egyptian cats.
The Persian, whose colouring is often the same as that of mixed breeds (although the length of hair and the body conformation are distinctive), was probably crossed at various times with other breeds; the tailless Manx cat, like the hairless Sphynx cat (see photograph ) and curly-coated Devon rex, is a mutation.
The ancestry of Persian and Siamese cats may well be distinct from other domestic breeds, representing a domestication of an Asian wild cat (the ancestor of the Egyptian cat is believed to have come from Africa). In fact, nothing is known of the ancestry of the Siamese types, and there is no living species of Asian cat that would serve as ancestor.

Associations with human culture

Limestone ostracon with a drawing of a cat bringing a boy before a mouse magistrate, New Kingdom Egypt, 20th dynasty (1200-1085 BC); in the Oriental Institute, University of Chicago.

The cat has long played a role in religion and witchcraft. In the Bible, "cat" is mentioned only in the apocryphal Letter of Jeremiah. The cat figured prominently in the religions of Egypt, the Norse countries, and various parts of Asia. The Egyptians had a cat-headed goddess named Bast. Thousands of cat mummies have been discovered in Egypt, and there were even mouse mummies, presumably to provide food for the cats.

Often the cat has been associated with sorcery and witchcraft, and the superstitions regarding cats are innumerable. Throughout the ages, cats have been more cruelly mistreated than perhaps any other animal. Black cats in particular have long been regarded as having occult powers and as being the familiars of witches.

The cat is a familiar figure in nursery rhymes, stories, and proverbs. The English legend of Dick Whittington and his cat is a particular favourite.

Supposed portrait of Dick Whittington and his cat, engraving by Renold (Renier) Elstracke, early 17th century.

Memorable literary cats include the British writer Rudyard Kipling's "Cat That Walked by Himself" (one of the Just So Stories, 1902), the delightful cats of Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats (1939) by the Anglo-American poet T. S. Eliot, and the Cheshire Cat, joint creation of the English writer Lewis Carroll and the illustrator Sir John Tenniel in the children's classic Alice's Adventures in Wonderland (1865). Many contemporary comic strips and animated cartoons also contain feline characters that delight ailurophiles (lovers of cats) of all ages. The writers Théophile Gautier and Charles Baudelaire also paid it homage.

Behaviour

Special traits

The cat has a subtle repertoire of facial expressions, vocal sounds, and tail and body postures that express its emotional state and intentions. These various signals serve to increase, decrease, or maintain social distance. One distinctive social behaviour involves rubbing the side of the head, lips, chin, or tail against the owner and against furniture. These regions of the cat's body contain scent glands that seem to play a role in establishing a familiar odour in the cat's environment.

The tongue of all cats, which has a patch of sharp, backward-directed spines near the tip, has the appearance and feel of a coarse file; the spines help the cat to lap up liquids and also to groom itself. The disposition to cleanliness is well established in cats, and they groom themselves at length, especially after meals.

While lions and other big cats roar, domestic cats and other Felis species purr. Purring has been described as a low, continuous, rattling hum and often is interpreted as an expression of pleasure or contentment. Purring also occurs in cats that are injured and in pain, however, so that this vocalization can be seen as the cat's "mantra"-that is, as a relaxing, self-comforting sound and a friendly mood-conveying signal.

Behavioral problems

Under conditions of domestication, the cat is subject to a variety of factors that result in behaviour indicative of emotional distress and difficulty in adapting to the home environment. Some behaviours are not abnormal but are difficult for owners to accept.

Devon Rex, white

The most common behaviour problem in companion cats is that they sometimes urinate and defecate outside the litter box in the house. Organic causes include feline urologic syndrome (urinary bladder inflammation and calculi, or stones, in the urinary tract), blocked or impacted anal glands, and constipation. Emotional causes include the addition of a new family member-another cat, a child, or a spouse. Such changes may make the cat feel insecure, so that it deposits urine and feces around the house, possibly as territorial marks for security. Cats are creatures of habit, and any change in the family structure or in daily routines-resulting, for example, from a move or even from rearranging furniture-can be stressful.

Another common behaviour problem in cats is their natural desire to rake objects such as drapes and furniture with their claws. Surgical removal of the front claws to prevent property damage is normally repugnant to cat lovers. Cats can be trained to use carpeted scratching posts in the house to satisfy this behavioral need, which may be a combination of claw cleaning and sharpening and of territorial marking.

Many cats engage in social licking and in the grooming of their feline and human companions, which is a natural display of affection and dependence. Some also engage in nursing behaviour, sucking on people's fingers and earlobes, on their own paws and tails, and on blankets and woolen clothing. Nursing may be a cat's way of regressing and relaxing into kittenish behaviour. It is often more intense in cats weaned too early or in those malnourished in kittenhood. For various emotional reasons some cats may groom themselves to the point of self-mutilation or become compulsive wool suckers and eaters.

Pica-a hunger for nonnutritive substances-may be a symptom of the need for more roughage in the diet or of feline leukemia or other health problems. As with the dog, excessive eating and drinking is frequently associated with endocrine diseases such as diabetes and thyroid dysfunction. Cats often vomit soon after eating, which is most often caused by the accumulation of fur balls in the stomach, although a food allergy, feline leukemia, or other organic cause may be involved.

Active and healthy cats often race through the house as though they were crazed. These "evening crazies" (which can also erupt early in the morning) result from the cat's ancient rhythm of actively hunting around dawn and dusk. In the domestic environment, this normal, instinctive behaviour often still occurs, to the consternation of some owners who fear that their cat may have rabies, a brain tumour, or an unstable personality.

Changes in animals' behaviour should not, therefore, be dismissed as psychological (or as simple disobedience, as when a cat suddenly becomes unhousebroken, for example), since there may be an underlying physical cause. Nevertheless, abnormal behaviour in animals often does have a nonphysical, psychological, or emotional origin, which should always be considered in the diagnosis and treatment of the ailments of companion animals.

Other traits

Bombay

The cat's sleep patterns are different from those of dogs and humans. Dogs and humans have long periods of REM (rapid eye movement) sleep, the stage that is associated with dreaming. In contrast, the cat rarely lapses into REM sleep. Instead, it has a lighter, episodic sleep pattern that enables it to rest but to be instantly alert. When sick, cats have a tendency to withdraw and become inactive, which helps them conserve energy. A sick cat may seem lifeless but recover after a few days of withdrawal, which is one reason cats are said to have nine lives. (A sick cat should always be taken to a veterinarian, however; it is negligent simply to let nature take its course.)

Cats are known to have traveled hundreds of miles to find their owners in new homes to which they themselves have never been. Dogs have also performed such feats of so-called psi (psychic) trailing. Scientists have not been able to find a physiological or psychological explanation for this ability.

Cats as pets

The popularity of the cat, especially of pedigreed breeds, has continued to grow. The cat's independent personality, grace, cleanliness, and subtle displays of affection have wide appeal. Typically, cats are creatures of habit; they are inquisitive, but not adventurous, and are easily upset by sudden changes of routine. The ideal household cat has been separated from its mother between the ages of two and four months, raised in a clean home, kept away from unhealthy animals, and inoculated against common infectious cat diseases. Although cats often enjoy the company of other cats, especially when raised together from kittenhood, introducing a strange cat to other cats in the home can cause stress, aggression, and other behaviour problems. Cats are generally less sociable than dogs, who more readily accept a new pack member.

A good disposition and good health are important criteria for choosing a cat. Disposition varies only slightly between male and female cats. There are, however, distinct differences in disposition among the various pedigreed varieties; the Siamese, for example, is vocal and demanding, while the Persian is quiet and fastidious. The mixed breed, or "alley" cat, is a heterogeneous breed of unknown lineage; therefore, its disposition is difficult to assess. By chance, the mixed breed may prove a happier and healthier pet than a pedigreed one. On the other hand, the behaviour and vigour of the direct ancestors of pedigreed cats are indicative of the characteristics the offspring will possess as adults. But, as with the propagation of purebred dogs, the proliferation of pedigreed cats has resulted in an increase in inherited diseases, a major reason many people prefer mongrels or mixed breeds.

Nutrition

Domestic cats should have a diet similar to that of their wild relatives. They are adapted by nature to be flesh eaters, as is shown by their alimentary tract and their dentition. The cat uses its canines to catch and kill prey, the molars to cut it up. Lack of flat-surfaced teeth prevents it from chewing or gnawing. The cat has a short intestine, and its stomach secretes digestive juices that act primarily on meat. Cats, however, like all meat-eating animals, chew grass and other plants occasionally, and small quantities of vegetables may serve as both a laxative and hair-ball remover.

As the science of feline nutrition has improved, specially formulated commercial diets have been developed. Serious health problems may arise when cats are fed unbalanced diets that consist exclusively of meat or tuna or when they are fed low-quality protein diets deficient in taurine. A deficiency of taurine can cause blindness and heart disease. Prescription diets are available for cats suffering from obesity, diabetes, kidney and heart disease, and urinary bladder calculi. Many cats are allergic to cow's milk, because of its high lactose content, and some are allergic to fish.

Genetics

Japanese Bobtail, mi-ke (tricolour)

Cats have never been bred for economic purposes; their matings are extremely difficult to control unless the animals are completely confined. There has been relatively little scientific breeding of cats, and the facts of inheritance in these animals are not well known.

Cats are genetically far less plastic than dogs and therefore have not offered the same opportunities to breeders. The size differences between breeds in the domestic dog have no parallel in the domestic cat, nor has anything even remotely approaching the wide range of head shapes and body proportions in different breeds of dogs ever appeared among the cats. In cats the physical differences between one breed and another are largely differences in colour and texture of the coat.

Colour

The most common coat colours are blotched tabby, black, and orange. The latter term refers to the gene responsible for the expression of creams, yellows, gingers, and reds ("yellow" and "red" can also refer to this group of colours). Solid white is dominant to all other colours. Tortoiseshell, a piebald pattern that results from crossing a black, tabby, or other nonorange colour with a colour from the orange group, is a sex-linked trait. The orange gene is carried on the X chromosome; male tortoiseshells have one extra X chromosome, resulting in an abnormal XXY chromosomal pattern. Hence, male tortoiseshells are born only rarely and are usually sterile. Similarly, tortoiseshell-and-white cats (in North America sometimes called calicoes) are almost always female.

Siamese dilution, the typical coloration of Siamese cats, has been described as a case of imperfect albinism and has been compared to the Himalayan pattern in rabbits, but its heredity is not well understood. There are also dilutions of the other ordinary colours: blue is dilute black and cream is dilute yellow. White spotting also occurs and is dominant to uniform colour.

Other characters

The long-haired coat of the Persian appears to be a simple unit character. It is recessive to short hair. Eye colour is known to be inherited, but its mode of inheritance is not thoroughly understood. Blue eye colour seems to be associated with dilution in coat colour; blue-eyed white cats are usually deaf, a fact commented on by Charles Darwin. Asymmetry of eye colour is inherited. Polydactylism, the presence of extra toes, is inherited and behaves as a dominant to the normal condition. It seems to be due to a single gene. The extra toes occur on the inner, or thumb, side of the foot.

Breeds

The number of recognized show breeds that have defined, inherited characteristics has increased dramatically since the late 1950s as cats have become more popular as home companions. The 30 to 40 distinctive breeds can be grouped into two general categories: the long-haired Persian and the domestic shorthair. Both of these breeds occur in various subcategories based on their coat colour, such as white, cream, chinchilla (or silver), smoke, tortoiseshell, and tabby (red, blue, and so on). Other distinctive and popular breeds include the Siamese (with seal point, blue point, chocolate point, and lilac point colour variations), the long-haired Himalayan, which resembles the Siamese in coloration, and the Abyssinian, Birman, Manx, rex, and Russian blue, the Maine Coon - North America’s only native longhaired breed.

Showing And Judging Cats

Many owners, even those of mixed-breed cats, enjoy exhibiting their cats at shows. Judges at cat shows must be trained and certified. Purebred cats are judged on health, temperament, and how well they fit the official standard for their breed. Mixed-breed cats are judged on health, temperament, and general appearance. All cats are expected to be amenable to handling; a cat may be disqualified if it bites or otherwise injures a judge.

Cat Associations

A cat association is an organization that registers cats and kittens, selects cat show judges, and schedules cat shows. There are various cat associations in the United States, including the Cat Fanciers' Association (CFA), The International Cat Association (TICA), and the American Cat Fanciers Association (ACFA). The largest of these groups, the CFA, registers more than 80,000 cats and kittens annually. All of the cat associations operate independently; cat clubs, breeders, and exhibitors choose which associations they wish to join and whose breed standards and rules they wish to follow.

Cat Shows

An increasing number of local, regional, and national cat shows are held throughout the year in the United States, with hundreds of cats competing for awards. Owners show their cats for fun and to gain a reputation among other exhibitors and breeders. Cat shows typically do not award monetary prizes, and the entry fees and travel expenses can be expensive.

Although exact show rules and procedures vary from association to association, the general format is the same. There are four categories of competition: purebred kittens, purebred adults, purebred alters (cats that have been neutered or spayed), and household pets (mixed-breed cats or kittens).

The exotic shorthair is one of the most popular breeds at cat shows. It requires less grooming than a Persian, making it a pet easy to care for. The Cat Fanciers’ Association (CFA) recognized this breed in 1967.

Originally called the shorthair and then the domestic shorthair, the American shorthair received its current name in 1966—one year after a male silver tabby became the first of this breed to win the Cat Fancier’s Association Best Cat of the Year award.

The Cat Fanciers’ Association granted official recognition to the Oriental shorthair in 1977, and to the Oriental longhair in 1995.

A single cat show may have as many as 20 or more different judges; usually, a cat is judged by every judge in the show. At cat shows in the United States, each judge has his or her own ring-an area consisting of 10 to 15 numbered cages and a judging table. Cats wait in cages in another area of the show hall, called the benching area. The owners bring the cats to the ring when called and place them in the judging cages. The judge takes each cat out of its cage in turn, places it on the judging table, and examines the cat carefully to make sure that it is healthy and meets the standard for that breed. After judging each cat within a particular class or breed, the judge gives out preliminary awards, such as Best of Color or Best of Breed. After judging all the cats in a category, the judge gives top awards to the ten best cats in that category. Each judge works independently, and judges' opinions sometimes differ markedly.

Source: "cat, domestic." Encyclopædia Britannica from Encyclopædia Britannica 2007 Ultimate Reference Suite. (2007).