Felis catus, cat facts

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Recent studies show that in the top 10 cat-owning countries there are almost 204 million cats whereas dogs are fewer than 173 million.

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Origin of domestic cat

• Fossils suggest that felid-like animals first appeared about 35 million years ago. Modern cats descended from a mid-size cat that existed about 10-11 million years ago, when saber-tooth tigers were long extinct. The earliest predecessor of living cats, Pseudaelurus, lived in Eurasia during Miocene. Molecular phylogeny defined eight principal Felidae lineages that form basis for recognition of main Felidae taxons: Panthera, Bay cat, Caracal, Ocelot, Lynx, Puma, Leopard, and Domestic cat lineages.
• Domestic and Leopard cat lineages branched out about 6.2 million years ago. For millions of years ancestors thrived in the world without humans. By about 10,00 years ago, there were several diminutive cat species in Eurasia: jungle cat, desert cat and a ubiquitous wildcat, Felis silvestris, whose Near East subspecies, Felis silvestris lybica, ventured to the territories occupied by ancient settlers, and thus initiated one of the more successful "biological experiments" ever undertaken.

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Cat domestication

• The oldest known archeological deposits with co-occurrence of human and cat remains are dated to 9,500 years ago in Cyprus (Crete); therefore, humans and cats co-existed side by side some 5,000-6,000 years before the ancient Egyptian civilization, which was considered as a cradle for cat domestication.
• Molecular data indicate that Near Eastern subspecies of Felis silvestris, Felis silvestris lybica, gave rise to modern domestic cat, Felis catus. The domestication event occurred around the time when the first agricultural settlements started to appear in the Fertile Crescent about 10,000 years ago.
• Divergence of domestic cat from wildcat occurred sympartically. It is believed that wild cats initiated domestication because human habitat offered more opportunities for hunting (barn pests) and reproduction (shelter, absence of enemies). Cats' evolution to companion animals was and to some degree still is a process of natural, rather than artificial, selection (with notable exception of fancy breeds, which undergo strict artificial selection pressures). For thousands of years they not only hunted for their own food but also continued to intermingle with wild cats. Occasionally, in the course of domestication, some of them retreated back to their natural habitats only to return again. Tamest and most sociable of them were allowed to enjoy food availability and protection provided by humans. Over generations these profiteers diverged from their wild relatives and became true and valued companions.
• Domestic cat varies little morphologically from the wild cat body plan, although, as Darwin noted, domestic cats have longer intestines than wildcats, a trait that might reflect departure from the strict carnivorous diet while feeding on the kitchen scraps.
  Domestic cats have become polyestrous; their coat color frequently differs wildly from the wildcat's striped mackerel tabby. Domestic cats can tolerate and even enjoy company of other cats (especially if they are siblings), whereas wildcats are solitary and fiercely territorial.
• Modern cat breeds derive from the earliest fancy breeds (Siamese, Persian, Corat, Egyptian Mau, Manx, Turkish Angora and others) established around the 17th century. The most recent breeds (American Curl, Selkirk Rex, and Singapora) were established during the late 20th century.

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Feeding habits and nutritional requirements

• Cats have higher protein and dietary nitrogen requirements than other domestic animals. While most animals reduce the activity of enzymes involved in amino acids' catabolism when fed protein-deficient foods (carbohydrates, fat), cats do not seem to be able to so.
• Felids evolved as obligate carnivores, and as such they have numerous nutritional idiosyncrasies. They totally lack or have low levels of key enzymes for synthesis of vitamin A, arachidonic acid, taurine, niacin, and ornithine.
• Cats are unable to synthesize arginine from glutamate and glutamine. Therefore, unique among nutrient deficiencies of cats is that ingestion of single arginine-free meal causes severe illness in cats: anorexia, hyperammonemia, emesis, ataxia, and even death.
• Cats show preference for the amino acids described as "sweet" in man (such as proline, cysteine, ornithine, lysine, histidine, and alanine) and reject the "bitter" amino acids (such as arginine, isoleucine, phenylalanine and tryptophan).
• Cats are insensitive to taste of salt and sugar.
• Unlike dogs, domestic cats derived from exclusively solitary hunters, and therefore usually take prey with much lower body mass than their own, which necessitate multiple small kills per day. This is reflected in feeding patterns of the domestic cats that usually prefer take multiple small meals throughout the 24 hours of the day.
• Small kills, one per a meal, also mean that the freshness of food is also very important for cats. Cats usually reject foods rich with monophosphate nucleotides and other compounds that accumulate in mammalian tissues after death, and this may be partly responsible for the cat's dislike of carrion.
• Cats frequently exhibit a growing aversion to monotonous repetitive foods. When offered palatable novel and long-fed food, they will choose the former with much higher probability. In nature, this strategy should reduce likelihood of unbalanced diet.
• Cats are equipped with flexible behavioral strategies and are able to adjust their feeding habits based on previous experiences. Although kittens are strongly attracted to diet of their mother, they can change their preferences considerably especially during the first year of life.

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Cat vocalizations (purr & meow)

Types of cat sounds

• produced with mouth closed (for example, purrs and trills);
• produced while the mouth is held open at fixed position (for example, spitting or hissing);
• produced while the mouth is open and gradually closed (meowing or miaowing).

Purring

Purring is common behavior in domestic cats. Darwin (1872) noted the occurence of purring in feline family: "the puma, cheetah and ocelot likewise purr; but the tiger, when pleased, emits a peculiar short snuffle accompanied by closure of the eye lids. It is said that the lion, jaguar, and leopard do not purr" . Pocock (1916, 1917) subdivided the family Felidae into "purrers" (Felinae) and "roarers" (Pantherinae), the latter not being able to purr, the former not being able to roar. The distribution of vocalization types is correlated with differences in the structure of the species' hyoid bone (lingual bone). Vocalization described as purring in the "roarers" seems to be restricted to females in estrus. It differs from true purr by being generated only during expiration. Purr results from a highly regular, alternating vibrations of the diaphragm and laryngeal muscles activated from some oscillatory mechanism within the central nervous system.

Essential characteristics of true purr in domestic cats:

• more or less continuous for several seconds, up to a few minutes or longer, during both phases of respiration, inhalation and exhalation, with very short interruptions in transition between the two phases;
• low sound intensity with the inspiratory phase being slightly more intense than exhalatory;
• respiratory rate during purring is significantly higher than during rest without purring: 46.2 breaths per minute during purring vs. 23.9 breaths per minute without purring at rest;
• the fundamental frequency (pulses per second, Hz) of purring is 26.3 Hz with the frequency being essentially constant during the animal's development (i.e. does not depend on body size);
• purring can be mixed with other tonal vocalizations such as trilling and meowing.

Purring occurs in nursing cats, in suckling kittens, in cats huddled up togeteher, during mutual grooming, friendly approach, and courtship. The commonality of these occurrences usually makes us think that purring is induced in relaxing friendly situations, when the purring cat is feeling content and comfortable and this is the message for the addressee(s) of the purring as comunicative signal sent not only through vocalization that is audible only at close distances of up to 3 m but also through the vibration of the whole body. This interpretation is difficult to reconcile with observations of purring in cats during labor, extreme hunger, or while severely hurt. Thus, the purring in stressful situations is interprreted as appeasement signal toward the approaching human and also may be used to soothe the vocalizing animal itself, similar to humming or singing a tune to oneself in humans.

Meowing

Only a handful of all feline species produce meow-like sounds and usually only in early stages of life as juveniles. These include Felis silvestris silvestris (European wild cat), Caracal caracal, Leopardus wieldii (margay), and an unspecified member of Lynx genus. Only domestic cat Felis catus and its wild ancestor Felis silvestris lybica (African wild cat) continue meowing in adulthood.

Meow in domestic cats is a call characterized by a mean fundamental frequency of ~400-1200 Hz, a modulating pitch profile, and a duration ranging from 110 to 3,100 ms. The meow is the most common cat-to-human vocalization. Undomesticated or feral cats rarely address humans with meowing and, moreover, meowing is rarely observed in cat-to-cat interactions.

Comparative studies of "pleasantness" of domestic and wild cats meowing sounds clearly showed that humans consider short and high meows of domestic cats as much more pleasant than those of wild cats. These results are consistent with a model of cat domestication that posits selective pressure on meows based on human perceptual preferences and biases.

Behavioral contexts in which domestic cats usually produce meowing sounds (adapted from Nicastro N., 2003, 2004):

• Food-related - cat solicits food;
• Agonistic - cat produces siren-like sound toward offending object;
• Affiliative - greeting behavior directed toward owner or other friendly human;
• Obstacle - cat indicates obstacle to owner (for example, closed door);
• Distress - repeated vocalizations directed at nothing in particular, usually while pacing (sometimes referred as "yowling");
• Self-absorbtion - cat observes something (for example, birds outside) and produces soft meows.

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Cat as a model organism

• There are approximately 70 million house cats in the United States and several times that number worldwide. The reasons for the large population of cats include mankind's fascination and domestication of the species plus a relatively high fecundity, adaptability, and exceptional survival abilities ("cat's nine lives") - features that increase the cat's potential as a genomic model for medical and biological application.
• Cats, like dogs, enjoy extensive medical surveillance that is second only to human health care. They have approximately 250 genetic diseases analogous to human disorders such as some neurodegenerative disorders, diabetes (at GeoChemBio), acromegaly, muscular dystrophy, hemophilia, etc. Feline pathogens represent natural models to human infectious diseases including HIV-AIDS (feline immunodeficiency virus (FIV)), SARS (feline coronavirus-FCoV), neurotropic and cancer-inducing viruses.
• In 2005, the cat, together with other 24 mammals, was selected for whole genome sequencing by National Human Genome Research Institute (NHGRI), to facilitate interpretation of the human genome sequence. Abyssinian breed was chosen for sequencing as the most inbred, which makes genome assembly easier. Cat by name Cinnamon provided her DNA.
• Toxoplasma gondii, one of most important pathogens, which is believed to affect the humanity profoundly, originates from felids that are its definitive hosts. Many companies that produce litter for domestic cats place important warning on their packages concerning toxoplasmosis, which can be distributed with cat's feces. Please read important details about toxoplasma and toxoplasmosis at MetaPathogen.

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More about cats at GeoChemBio

• Cat reproductive cycle (mating, estrous cycle)
• Cat development (from fertilization to adult)
• Cat taxonomy (full taxonomy of Felidae)
• Cat behavior (illustrated)
• Feline diabetes (all you need to know, Pushkin's lab, etc.)

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Pictorials

Stray tabby in Japan	Polydactyl cat in Hemingway museum (Key West, Florida)	Mexican stray feeds on fish scraps (Ixtapa region)
Cat in one of Japanese hostels on the way to Nikko	Lounging stray in Budapest	Mexican stray lives on hotel premises (Ixtapa region)

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References

• Driscoll CA et al. The Near Eastern origin of cat domestication. Science. 2007 Jul 27;317(5837):519-23.
• O'Brien SJ et al. State of cat genomics. Trends Genet. 2008 Jun;24(6):268-79.
• Zaghini G, Biagi G. Nutritional peculiarities and diet palatability in the cat. Vet Res Commun. 2005 Aug.
• Driscoll CA, Macdonald DW, O'Brien SJ. From wild animals to domestic pets, an evolutionary view of domestication. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2009 Jun 16.
• Bradshaw JW. The evolutionary basis for the feeding behavior of domestic dogs (Canis familiaris) and cats (Felis catus). J Nutr. 2006 Jul.
• Driscoll CA et al. The Near Eastern origin of cat domestication. Science. 2007 Jul 27.
• Lipinski MJ et al. The ascent of cat breeds: genetic evaluations of breeds and worldwide random-bred populations. Genomics. 2008 Jan;91(1):12-21.
• McComb K, Taylor AM, Wilson C, Charlton BD. The cry embedded within the purr. Curr Biol. 2009 Jul 14;19(13):R507-8.
• Nicastro N. Perceptual and acoustic evidence for species-level differences in meow vocalizations by domestic cats (Felis catus) and African wild cats (Felis silvestris lybica). J Comp Psychol. 2004 Sep;118(3):287-96.
• Remmers JE, Gautier H. Neural and mechanical mechanisms of feline purring. Respir Physiol. 1972 Dec;16(3):351-61.
• Nicastro N, Owren MJ. Classification of domestic cat (Felis catus) vocalizations by naive and experienced human listeners. J Comp Psychol. 2003 Mar;117(1):44-52.
• Peters G. Purring and similar vocalizations in mammals. Mammal Rev. 2002 Volume 32, No. 4, 245-271.

Websites

• Sequencing the Genome of the Domestic Cat (Felis catus).
• Feline behavior guidelines (American Association of Feline Practitioners)

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