Of felines and their origins

3 July, 2007:

Did you know that cats existed over 100,000 years ago? If you did not, read on.

A new research points out that domestic cats can be traced to wild progenitors that interbred well over 100,000 years ago. The origin of today's cats is from Lybica, a Middle Eastern wildcat, says the study. Though the current day felines look very different from what Lybica used to look like, it is sure that the original cat was the mid-eastern cat. According to Stephen J. O'Brien of the National Cancer Institute, domestication took place in the Middle East. The study came about with researchers studying the origins of the loving and aloof, graceful and finicky pets that entertain or supervise millions of homes.

The research, meanwhile, is being seen as a very important one mainly because cats are a model for some human genetic diseases, such as polycystic kidney disease and retinal atrophy. The work is also expected to assist in conservation efforts for wild cats. According to the findings, the ancestry of cats has been traced to five types of wild cats, but that doesn't mean they were domesticated five times. These five types managed to interbreed at various times, with the result being Felis silvestris lybica, which appears to be the ancestor of modern house cats, the study suggests.

Experts point out that cats may have been domesticated once or many times and the most likely case is they were domesticated once and other wild cats bred with the domesticated ones. The data supports these assumptions, they add. The researchers found wild cats, with DNA identical to domestic cats, in Israel, United Arab Emirates, Bahrain and Saudi Arabia.

It has been found that domestication of cats began as early as 10,000 to 12,000 years ago. With domestication, local wild cats adapted to hunting rodents in the grain and developed a relationship with farmers of yore. A report adds that the earliest archaeological evidence of the cat-human association dates to 9,500 years ago in Cyprus.