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Status: Secure feline carnivorous mammal that has been domesticated for approximately 7000 years. Its scientific name is Felis silvestris catus or Felis silvestris domesticus, however the species is sometimes referred to as Felis domesticus or Felis catus.
A male cat is usually called a tom cat; a female cat is called a queen. A young cat is called a kitten (as are baby rats, rabbits, hedgehogs, and squirrels). A cat whose ancestry is officially registered is called a purebred cat, a pedigreed cat, or a show cat. The owners and breeders of show cats compete to see who can breed the cat with the closest resemblance to the "ideal" definition of the breed (see selective breeding). Less than one percent of the total feline population are purebred cats—the remaining 99% have mixed ancestry and are generally known in the UK and elsewhere as moggies, or more properly domestic longhairs and domestic shorthairs.
Domestic cats have the capacity to be predators as deadly and effective as the big cats, but pose little danger to humans because of their small size. They ambush and dispatch prey using tactics similar to leopards and tigers. Despite its reputation as a solitary animal, the domestic cat is social enough to form colonies, but does not attack as a group as do lions. Unlike dogs, cats can thrive only on a carnivorous diet.
The Wild Cat ancestor of the cat is believed to have evolved in a desert climate, as evident in their behavior. Cats enjoy heat and solar exposure, often sleeping in a warm area during the heat of the day. Their feces are usually very dry and cats prefer to bury them in sandy places. They are able to remain motionless for long periods of time, especially when observing prey and preparing to pounce. In North Africa there are still small wildcats that are probably closely related to the ancestors of today's domesticated breeds.
Cats, being closely related to desert animals, can withstand the heat and cold of a temperate climate, but not always for long periods of time. They have little resistance against rain and snow and struggle to maintain their 102°F (39°C) body temperature when wet.
Cats typically weigh 4 to 7 kg (9 to 15 pounds) and rarely over 10 kg (22 pounds). They have been known to reach weights in excess of 23 kg (50 pounds) but only when overfed. This is very unhealthy for the animal and should not be done. In captivity, cats typically live 15 to 20 years, though the oldest known cat lived to age 36. Domestic cats, on average, live longer if they are not permitted to go outdoors (thus avoiding fights and accidents) and if they are spayed or neutered. Indoor cats must be provided a litterbox containing sand or similar commercial material (litter). This arrangement serves the same purpose as a toilet for humans. A litterbox is recommended for indoor-outdoor cats as well.
Cats (including domesticated cats) have a scent organ in the roof of their mouths called the vomeronasal, or Jacobson's organ. When a cat wrinkles its muzzle, lowers its chin, and lets its tongue hang a bit, it is opening the passage to the vomeronasal. This is called gaping. Gaping is the equivalent of the Flehmen response in other animals such as dogs and horses.
Cats have excellent nocturnal and diurnal vision. An organ called the tapetum lucidum is responsible for their strong low-light vision, as well as for the varied colours of cats' eyes in flash photographs. As with most predators their eyes are both forward-facing, affording depth perception at the expense of field of view. Cats are weakly trichromatic.
Cats have a third eyelid, which closes from the side, which is a thin cover that appears when the cat's eyelid opens. This is called the nictitating membrane. This membrane partially closes if the cat is sick, although a very sleepy and happy cat can show this membrane. If a cat chronically shows the third eyelid, it should be taken to a veterinarian as this may indicate illness.
The sound a cat makes, unique to small cats, is written "meow" in American English, "miaow" in British English and various other ways in other languages. Cats can also produce a purring noise that is immensely pleasurable to many humans. Some cats growl or hiss when they see other cats on their territory. The hiss resembles the sound of a snake, an animal often more fearsome than a cat.
Virtually all cats have straight upward ears. Unlike dogs, flap-eared breeds are very rare. Scottish Folds is one such exceptional genetic mutation.
Cats are also very clean as they groom themselves by licking their fur. Their saliva is a powerful cleaning agent, but it can provoke allergic reactions in humans. They also occasionally vomit up hair balls of fur that have collected in their stomachs.
The earliest written records of cat domestication date to ancient Egypt circa 4000 BC, where cats were kept to keep mice and rats away from grain stores. However, a recently discovered gravesite in Shillourokambos, Cyprus, dating to 7500 BC contains the skeletons of a ceremonially buried human and a young cat, although cats are not native to Cyprus. This is thought to indicate that cats were domesticated (or perhaps just tamed) at least this early. The cat found in the Cyprus grave was more similar to the ancestral wildcat species than to modern housecats.
Ancient Egyptians regarded cats as embodiments of the goddess Bast, also known as Bastet or Thet. The penalty for killing a cat was death, and when a cat died it was sometimes mummified in the same way as a human. In the Middle Ages, cats were often thought to be witches' familiars, and during festivities were sometimes burnt alive or thrown off tall buildings. Today some people believe that white cats are unlucky, or that it is unlucky if a black cat crosses your path, but others believe that black cats are lucky.
The cat is one of the 12-year cycle of animals in the Vietnamese zodiac. It does not, however, appear in the Chinese zodiac. Legend states that the rat, who invited the animals to the Jade Emperor's palace to be chosen for the zodiac, forgot to invite the cat, so the cat declared the rat its natural enemy.
Cats are kept for companionship as pets and to hunt mice and rats. Farms often have dozens of cats living semi-wild in the barns. Hunting in the barns and the fields, they kill and eat rodents that would otherwise eat large parts of the grain crop. Many pet cats successfully hunt and kill mice, rabbits, birds, lizards, fish, and large insects by instinct, but might not eat their prey.
Feral cats may live alone, but most are found in large groups called feral colonies with communal nurseries, depending on resource availability. Many abandoned pet cats join these colonies out of desperation. The average lifespan of these feral cats is less than two years, while an average domestic housecat lives an average of sixteen years or more. Cityscapes, farms and much of the world are not native environments to the cat; the domestic cat comes from a desert climate and was distributed throughout the world by humans. Although cats are somewhat adaptable, feral felines are unable to thrive in extreme cold and heat, and with a protein requirement of about 90%, few ferals find adequate nutrition on their own. In addition, they have no defense or understanding of such predators as dogs, coyotes, and even automobiles. However, throughout the United States, there are thousands of volunteers and organizations that trap these unadoptable feral felines, spay or neuter them, inoculate the cats against rabies and feline leukemia, and treat them with long-lasting flea products. Before release back into their feral colonies, the attending veterinarian nips the tip off one ear to mark the feral as spayed/neutered and inoculated, as these cats will more than likely find themselves trapped again. Volunteers continue to feed and give care to these cats throughout their lives, and not only is their lifespan greatly increased, behavior and nuisance problems due to competition for food are greatly reduced. In time, if the entire colony is successfully spayed and neutered, no additional kittens are born and the feral colony disappears. Many hope to see an end to the harsh and unnatural world of urban feral cat colonies through these efforts.
Low cost are available throughout the United States.
Like many other domesticated animals, cats lived in a mutualistic arrangement with humans, but for a much shorter time than almost all other domesticated animals. The benefit of removing rats and mice from humans' food stores outweighed the cost of allowing a formerly-wild animal to enjoy the relative safety of a human settlement; hence, the relationship between cat and human has continued. However, unlike other domesticated species, housecats' ancestors did not hunt socially or enjoy the safety of a herd, as other domesticated animals did. This evolutionary history may be the reason cats do not "understand" the desires of humans in the same way that dogs do; before humans, cats had fewer social relationships to benefit from. This may also contribute to a sense common among pet owners that cats are both more aloof and more self-sufficient than other pets. However, cats can be very affectionate towards their humans, especially if they imprint on them at a very young age and are treated with consistent affection.
Some environmentalists claim that the domestication of cats is of harm to the environment, and excessive cat populations result in the overhunting of many small animals and birds in both urban and rural areas, possibly disrupting the food chain and limiting local species populations. Throughout the centuries, as humans took advantage of the domestic cat's hunting skills, few had regard for their habitat and care, and far fewer thought to practice good animal husbandry. This has created many pockets of excessive populations and local imbalances; however, with intervention and management, most especially spay and neuter programs, the disruptions and chaos in both the feline's life cycle as well as its prey can easily be avoided, and the positive effects these small and vital predators have in the appropriate evironments can be observed and appreciated.
For more information on the care of domestic cats, see How to choose your pet and take care of it, which has a section on cats.
The list of cat breeds lists the many cat breeds. Each breed has distinct features and heritage. Due to common cross-breeding in populated areas, many cats are simply identified as belonging to the homogeneous breeds of domestic longhair and domestic shorthair, depending on their type of fur.
Cats come in a variety of colors and patterns. However, these colors and patterns are physical properties and should not be confused with a breed of cat. Calico is white with distinct black or red (or blue and cream in the dilute variant) spots. The Japanese refer to this pattern as mi-ke. Tortoiseshell pattern is black with red and white mottled throughout the coat. The dilute of this pattern is referred to as blue-cream. Bicolor cats are partly white with areas of color. A tabby cat is a striped cat. The tabby pattern has a variety of patterns. The classic pattern is the most common and consists of butterflies and bullseyes. The mackeral tabby is a series of vertical stripes down the cat's side (resembling the fish). This pattern broken into spots is referred to as spotted tabby. (See also cat coat genetics).
Household cats are grouped into a smaller number of types according to basic physical appearance:
Some of the basic feline coloration patterns also have names:
In desperate times, people have been known to resort to cooking and eating cats, as occurred in Argentina in 1996. Cats are also rumored to occasionally be prepared in Cantonese cuisine, but this culture is also well known to prize long haired cats as pets. People also kill cats to produce "medicinal" potions such as Korean "liquid cat", a remedy for joint pain, and for pelts that will be mislabeled as expensive or restricted furs. An Australian veterinarian gives his account . Such potions can be harmful to other people.
This is an especially severe problem with many Asian exports; some traditional medicines sent to the United States are of an unknown animal origin, and clothing and toys are frequently trimmed with cat fur. In 2001, thousands of fur-covered toy cats imported from China to the northeast United States were recalled and destroyed; ironically, they were actually covered with slaughtered cat pelts.
There is an Australian aboriginal desert tribe that hunts the difficult-to-catch feral cat as their secondary source of meat, calling it "bush meat". In reality, eating both cats and dogs is banned in Australia, but may be difficult to enforce. These people believe this cat to be either indigenous or of ancient, non-European origin; however, recent DNA analysis has shown that they are in fact descendants of British shorthairs gone feral.
Sometimes the term "roof-hare" applies to a cat's meat presented as a hare. Subtracting the skin, feet, head and tail, hares and cats are practically identical. The only way to distinguish them is by looking at the processus hamatus of the feline scapula, which should have a processus suprahamatus.
Cats are not an economical source of protein for humans, as they are predators themselves and far more useful at keeping small rodent populations under control. Within nature, when predators suddenly become prey, a serious environmental imbalance is generally to blame.
The speed of spread of the Black Death in the 14th century had many people (religion being the way of life) believing that the Devil was in some way responsible for the disease. This thought led the Pope to declare that cats, who were known to roam freely, were in league with the devil. This declaration was aided by the belief that cats often acted as Witches' familiars. Because of the declaration, a great many cats were killed in the very religious Europe. The sudden decrease in cats led to a massive increase in rats and the plague-carrying fleas that fed upon them.
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