What is a cat?
The Felidae family includes everything from tigers, lions, cougars, ocelots, and lynxes to the domestic cats we keep in our homes. House cats are the smallest feline family members, but otherwise they share many characteristics with their larger, wild relatives. They have a wide variety of fur patterns, retractable claws, flexible bodies, rough tongues, sensitive whiskers, and large eyes with good night vision.
Cats use their long tails to maintain balance, allowing them to walk on various narrow surfaces, like the tops of doors or fences. Their tail movements can also communicate different emotions, such as interest, friendliness, and fear. Cats are one of the most popular pets on the planet, but unlike dogs, humans haven’t had a large hand in selectively breeding the species. Instead, we developed a relationship with cats over thousands of years thanks to our need to stop rodents from eating our food and cats’ natural desire to catch and eat rodents.
Cats are popular largely thanks to their interesting personalities, which are both independent yet needy and affectionate yet aloof. These characteristics could be a product of our naturally developed relationship—while dogs have been selectively bred to love and trust us, cats have been left to their own devices and likely still see themselves as independent but view humans as a potential source of food and shelter.
However, as much as we love cats, their success as a species does have consequences for other animals. There are around double the amount of feral cats as there are house cats worldwide, and as animals that can breed throughout much of or all of the year and produce multiple young at once, their populations can grow very quickly. Their intelligence and competence as hunters, plus their status as an invasive species, make them dangerous to prey species. Ecosystems that didn’t evolve to have cats can be thrown off balance very easily and result in the extinction of species like rodents, small mammals, birds, and reptiles.
What is a cat’s scientific name?
The scientific name for the domestic cat is Felis catus. They are the domesticated members of the Felidae family and are its smallest member.
Where do cats live?
Domestic cats are found worldwide, though their popularity as pets does vary from region to region. The majority of the cat population—400 million out of the 600 million—live in Asia, with 58 million of those being house cats in China. The US tops the charts for cat ownership, with around the same amount of house cats as China despite a much lower human population. The UK is home to around 10.9 million house cats.
Evolution
According to recent studies, today’s domestic cats descend from two main lineages, the first of which came from Asia and into Europe around 4400 BCE. Farming settlements attracted rodents that fed on crops and agricultural byproducts, and the rodents, in turn, attracted their predators—cats. Since fewer rodents meant less trouble for the humans, it’s thought that they allowed the cats to live nearby to cull the rodent population.
The second ancestor is the African wildcat from Egypt, Felis silvestris libyca, which spread into the Mediterranean in around 1500 BCE. It’s thought that this cat may have had social behaviour traits that people liked, and they began taking cats with them along trade routes on land and sea to control rodents while travelling.
Unlike dogs, humans never bred cats for specific purposes; we just developed a symbiotic relationship that led cats to slowly domesticate themselves. Living near humans meant more food to hunt and, eventually, more low-effort food sources as humans began to feed cats directly.
Cats as pets
Our relationship with cats dates back thousands of years, long before they started living with us in our houses. They were considered a sacred animal in Egypt, with ancient Egyptians worshipping the cat god Bastet. Mummified cats from this era have even helped scientists trace and study DNA to learn about the history of cats. Cats were also used in Roman homes as pest control, and they featured in Hindu epics like the Ramayana.
Today, we keep cats as household pets. As many as one third of US households own a cat, and there are over 220 million house cats worldwide. Their popularity stems from their independent personalities, inquisitive nature, cleanliness, and displays of affection. Compared to ever-affectionate dogs, many pet owners feel an increased sense of accomplishment and closeness when they win the affection of a fickle cat.
There are many breeds of domestic cats today. Selective breeding began in the 1800s to create specific breeds with recorded ancestry and high price tags. Today, there are around 73 breeds altogether, each with unique physical and behavioural characteristics.
Disaster preparedness
IFAW is dedicated to rescuing, rehabilitating, and reuniting pets with their owners after disasters such as earthquakes, floods, or human conflicts. However, you can also do a lot to prepare for a disaster before it happens, ensuring you will be ready to keep your pet safe and healthy.
The main things to think about are health and stress levels. If a disaster happens, you need to be able to feed, medicate, and keep your pet as calm as possible while you evacuate and stay away from home.
To prepare, we recommend that you microchip your pet and register their information on a national database, keep up to date with vaccinations, ensure your pet is comfortable travelling in a carrier, and prepare a pet disaster kit.
The kit should include essentials like two weeks’ worth of food, drinking water, a photo of you with your pet, a pet collar with ID, medical records, a pet carrier, portable bowls, a harness or leash, and any necessary medications.
The threats cats pose to wild animals
Domestic cats that are allowed to roam outdoors are technically considered an invasive species by ecologists. After all, they were brought to new places by humans, and, as hunters, they significantly affect the wildlife around them.
According to the Global Invasive Species Database (GISD), domestic cats impact 587 IUCN Red List assessed species worldwide. This means they act as unnatural predators to many endangered or threatened species.
One study claims that feral cats on islands are responsible for at least 14% of bird, mammal, and reptile extinctions worldwide. Once introduced to an island, the clever and competent predators can completely wipe out native species in the contained area. Cats are also considered the principal threat to almost 8% of the world’s critically endangered birds, mammals, and reptiles, including species like the black stilt, the Okinawa woodpecker, and the Cayman Island ground iguana.
