How could domestic cats have conquered our world?

Cats manage to successfully manipulate people for many millennia. They exist on all continents except Antarctica, they live with us in the same house and receive care and love. But when exactly did the cats begin to "conquer" our world? Now researchers have shed some light on this mystery.

Ancestors of domestic cats

Domestic cats are known to have descended from wild (Felis silvestris), which were common in Europe, Africa and much of Asia. Initially, there were five subspecies of these animals that look identical to an inexperienced eye, especially when all that remains of them is the skeletons found by archaeologists.

However, these subspecies differed at the genetic level. This conclusion was made by scientists who examined the remains of 352 cats found from Namibia to France, ages from 9000 to 100 years. Thanks to this, the researchers were able to determine where the cats first crossed the threshold of our house.

When a wild cat turned into a domestic

The results confirm the earlier assumptions that all domestic cats originated from one subspecies - the Libyan (Felis silvestris lybic), about 10,000 years ago. Most likely, farmers started breeding them to fight pests.

But although it was previously assumed that domesticated cats began on a single territory, the researchers found that it most likely occurred in two places - in the Middle and Middle East. It is still unknown whether Egyptian domestic cats differ from those that appeared in the countries of the Middle East. It is possible that in Egypt there was a second domestication. Co-author of the study Claudio Ottoni argues that this issue will be able to clarify the further work of scientists.

Externally, cats seem to be bad candidates for domestication: these animals are single and predators that do not have a hierarchical social structure. And yet, these furry conquerors spread their influence throughout the world.

Researchers believe that from Egypt, cats dispersed by trade and migration routes on ships and on land. The people's love for them was so great that the bones of the Egyptian cat were discovered even in the Viking settlement on the Baltic Sea coast.

Reasons for Domestication

An analysis of the DNA of the ancient remains of a cat also made it possible for researchers to understand the color of wool from the ancestors of our domestic cats. First of all, it is important because it helps to understand why and how our ancestors decided to domesticate these animals.

The researchers found that cats from ancient Egypt had striped hair, reminiscent of images in pictures found in tombs. Moreover, this color dominated for many thousands of years. It turns out that the tabby pattern, consisting of spots and stripes, appeared only during the Middle Ages. Cats of this color appeared in South-West Asia, and then spread throughout Europe.

This suggests that for most of the history of the domestication of cats, their owners did not worry about aesthetics, but had a much more practical reason to keep their houses - they were good at fighting pests.