6/20/2019 Cat - Wikipedia

Cat
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This article is about the cat species that is commonly kept as a pet. For the cat family, see Felidae. For other
uses, see Cat (disambiguation) and Cats (disambiguation).

For technical reasons, "Cat #1" redirects here. For the album, see Cat 1 (album).

Domestic cat

Various types of domestic cat

Conservation status
Domesticated
Scientific classification
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Chordata
Class: Mammalia
Order: Carnivora
Suborder: Feliformia
Family: Felidae
Subfamily: Felinae
Genus: Felis
Species: F. catus[1]
Binomial name
Felis catus[1]
(Linnaeus, 1758)[2]
Synonyms

F. catus domesticus Erxleben,

1777[3]
F. angorensis Gmelin, 1788
F. vulgaris Fischer, 1829

The cat (Felis catus) is a small carnivorous mammal.[1][2] It is the only domesticated species in the family
Felidae and often referred to as the domestic cat to distinguish it from wild members of the family.[4] The

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cat is either a house cat, kept as a pet, or a feral cat, freely ranging and avoiding human contact.[5] A house
cat is valued by humans for companionship and for its ability to hunt rodents. About 60 cat breeds are
recognized by various cat registries.[6]

Cats are similar in anatomy to the other felid species, with a strong flexible body, quick reflexes, sharp teeth
and retractable claws adapted to killing small prey. They are predators who are most active at dawn and dusk
(crepuscular). Cats can hear sounds too faint or too high in frequency for human ears, such as those made by
mice and other small animals. Compared to humans, they see better in the dark (they see in near total
darkness) and have a better sense of smell, but poorer color vision. Cats, despite being solitary hunters, are a
social species. Cat communication includes the use of vocalizations including mewing, purring, trilling,
hissing, growling and grunting as well as cat-specific body language.[7] Cats also communicate by secreting
and perceiving pheromones.[8]

Female domestic cats can have kittens from spring to late autumn, with litter sizes ranging from two to five
kittens.[9] Domestic cats can be bred and shown as registered pedigreed cats, a hobby known as cat fancy.
Failure to control the breeding of pet cats by spaying and neutering, as well as abandonment of pets, has
resulted in large numbers of feral cats worldwide, contributing to the extinction of entire bird species, and
evoking population control.[10]

It was long thought that cat domestication was initiated in Egypt, because cats in ancient Egypt were
venerated since around 3100 BC.[11][12] However, the earliest indication for the taming of an African wildcat
(F. lybica) was found in Cyprus, where a cat skeleton was excavated close by a human Neolithic grave dating
to around 7500 BC.[13] African wildcats were probably first domesticated in the Near East.[14] The leopard
cat (Prionailurus bengalensis) was tamed independently in China around 5500 BC, though this line of
partially domesticated cats leaves no trace in the domestic cat populations of today.[15][16]

As of 2017, the domestic cat was the second-most popular pet in the U.S. by number of pets owned, after
freshwater fish,[17] with 95 million cats owned.[18][19] As of 2017, it was ranked the third-most popular pet
in the UK, after fish and dogs, with around 8 million being owned.[20] The number of cats in the United
Kingdom has nearly doubled since 1965, when the cat population was 4.1 million.[21]

Contents
1 Etymology
2 Alternative term
3 Associated terms
4 Taxonomy
5 Evolution
5.1 Before domestication
5.2 Domestication
6 Characteristics
6.1 Size
6.2 Skeleton
6.3 Skull
6.4 Ambulation
6.5 Claws
7 Senses
7.1 Vision
7.2 Hearing
7.3 Smell
7.4 Accessory smell
7.5 Taste
7.6 Whiskers
7.7 Heights
7.8 Balance
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8 Physiology
8.1 Heat tolerance
8.2 Temperature regulation
8.3 Water conservation
8.4 Ability to swim
9 Nutrition
9.1 Food sources
9.2 Dietary components
9.2.1 Arginine
9.2.2 Taurine
9.2.3 Niacin
9.2.4 Vitamin A
9.2.5 Vitamin D
9.2.6 Essential fatty acids
10 Behavior
10.1 Sociability
10.2 Communication
10.3 Grooming
10.4 Fighting
10.5 Hunting and feeding
10.6 Speed
10.7 Play
10.8 Reproduction
11 Ecology
11.1 Habitats
11.2 Feral cats
11.3 Impact on prey species
11.4 Impact on birds
12 Interaction with humans
12.1 Cat show
12.2 Cat café
12.3 Ailurophobia
12.4 Cat bites
12.5 Infections transmitted from cats to humans
12.6 History and mythology
12.7 Superstitions and rituals
13 Lifespan
14 Genetics
15 Disease
16 See also
17 Notes
18 References
19 External links

Etymology
The origin of the English word cat (Old English catt) and its counterparts in other Germanic languages (such
as German Katze), descended from Proto-Germanic *kattōn-, is controversial. It has traditionally thought to
be a borrowing from Late Latin cattus, 'domestic cat', from catta (used around 75 AD by Martial),[22][23]
compare also Byzantine Greek κάττα, Portuguese and Spanish gato, French chat, Maltese qattus, Lithuanian
katė, and Old Church Slavonic kotъ (kot'), among others.[24]

The Late Latin word is generally thought to originate from an Afro-Asiatic language, but every proposed
source word has presented problems. Many references refer to "Berber" (Kabyle) kaddîska, 'wildcat', and
Nubian kadīs as possible sources or cognates, but M. Lionel Bender suggests the Nubian term is a loan from
‫ ِﻗ ﱠ‬qiṭṭa.[25] Jean-Paul Savignac suggests the Latin word is from an Ancient Egyptian precursor of
Arabic ‫ﻄﺔ‬

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Coptic ϣⲁⲩ šau, 'tomcat', or its feminine form suffixed with -t,[26] but John Huehnergard says "the source
[...] was clearly not Egyptian itself, where no analogous form is attested."[25] Huehnergard opines it is
"equally likely that the forms might derive from an ancient Germanic word, imported into Latin and thence
to Greek and to Syriac and Arabic". Guus Kroonen also considers the word to be native to Germanic (due to
morphological alternations) and Northern Europe, and suggests that it might ultimately be borrowed from
Uralic, cf. Northern Sami gáđfi, 'female stoat', and Hungarian hölgy, 'stoat'; from Proto-Uralic *käďwä,
'female (of a furred animal)'.[27] In any case, cat is a classic example of a word that has spread as a loanword
among numerous languages and cultures: a Wanderwort.

Alternative term
An alternative word is English puss (extended as pussy and pussycat). Attested only from the 16th century, it
may have been introduced from Dutch poes or from Low German puuskatte, related to Swedish kattepus, or
Norwegian pus, pusekatt. Similar forms exist in Lithuanian puižė and Irish puisín or puiscín. The etymology
of this word is unknown, but it may have simply arisen from a sound used to attract a cat.[28][29]

Associated terms
A group of cats can be referred to as a clowder or a glaring.[30]
A male cat is called a tom or tomcat[31] (or a gib,[32] if neutered)
An unspayed female is called a queen,[33] especially in a cat-breeding context.
A juvenile cat is referred to as a kitten. In Early Modern English, the word kitten was interchangeable
with the now-obsolete word catling.[34]
The male progenitor of a cat, especially a pedigreed cat, is its sire[35] and its mother is its dam.[36]
A pedigreed cat is one whose ancestry is recorded by a cat fancier organization.
A purebred cat is one whose ancestry contains only individuals of the same breed.
Many pedigreed and especially purebred cats are exhibited as show cats.
Cats of unrecorded, mixed ancestry are referred to as domestic short-haired or domestic long-haired
cats (by coat type), or commonly as random-bred, moggies (chiefly British), or (using terms borrowed
from dog breeding) mongrels or mutt-cats.
The semi-feral cat, a mostly outdoor cat, is not owned by any one individual, but is generally friendly
to people and may be fed by several households.
Truly feral cats are associated with human habitation areas, foraging for food and sometimes
intermittently fed by people, but are typically wary of human interaction.[37]
Domestic vs. wild - while the African wildcat is the ancestral species from which domestic cats are
descended, and wildcats and domestic cats can completely interbreed, several intermediate stages
occur between domestic pet and pedigree cats on one hand and entirely wild animals on the other.

Taxonomy
The scientific name Felis catus for the domestic cat was proposed by Carl Linnaeus in the 10th edition of
Systema Naturae published in 1758.[1][2] Felis catus domesticus was a scientific name proposed by the
German naturalist Erxleben in 1777.[3] Felis daemon proposed by Satunin in 1904 was a black cat specimen
from the Transcaucasus, later identified as a domestic cat.[38][39]

In 2003, the International Commission on Zoological Nomenclature (ICZN) fixed the scientific name for the
wildcat as F. silvestris. The same commission ruled that the domestic cat is a distinct taxon Felis catus.[40]
[41] Following results of phylogenetic research, the domestic cat was considered a wildcat subspecies F.

silvestris catus in 2007.[42][43]

In 2017, the IUCN Cat Classification Taskforce followed the recommendation of the ICZN in regarding the
domestic cat as a distinct species.[44]
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Evolution
Main article: Cat evolution

Before domestication
The domestic cat is a member of the Felidae, a family that had a common ancestor about 10–15 million years
ago.[45] The genus Felis diverged from the Felidae around 6–7 million years ago.[46] Members of this genus
include the jungle cat (F. chaus), European wildcat (F. silvestris), African wildcat (F. lybica), Chinese
mountain cat (F. bieti), sand cat (F. margarita) and black-footed cat (F. nigripes).[47] Results of phylogenetic
research confirm that these wild Felis species evolved through sympatric or parapatric speciation, whereas
the domestic cat evolved through artificial selection.[48]

Domestication

See also: Evolution of the domesticated cat

Skulls of a wildcat (top left), a

housecat (top right), and a hybrid
between the two (bottom centre)

A cat sitting under a chair, a mural

in an Egyptian tomb dating to the
15th century BC

The earliest known indication for a tamed African wildcat was excavated close by a human grave in
Shillourokambos, southern Cyprus, dating to about 9,200 to 9,500 years before present. As there is no
evidence of native mammalian fauna on Cyprus, the inhabitants of this Neolithic village most likely brought
the cat and other wild mammals to the island from the continent.[13] Scientists therefore assume that African
wildcats were attracted to early human settlements in the Fertile Crescent by rodents, in particular the house
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mouse (Mus musculus), and were tamed by Neolithic farmers. This commensal relationship between early
farmers and tamed cats lasted thousands of years. As agricultural practices spread, so did tame and
domesticated cats.[14][6] Wildcats of Egypt contributed to the maternal gene pool of the domestic cat at a
later time.[49] The earliest known evidence for the occurrence of the domestic cat in Greece dates to around
1200 BC. Greek, Phoenician, Carthaginian and Etruscan traders introduced domestic cats to southern
Europe.[50] By the 5th century BC, it was a familiar animal around settlements in Magna Graecia and
Etruria.[51] Domesticated cats were introduced to Corsica and Sardinia during the Roman Empire before the
beginning of the 1st millennium.[52] The Egyptian domestic cat lineage is evidenced in a Baltic Sea port in
northern Germany by the end of the Roman Empire in the 5th century.[49]

During domestication, cats have undergone only minor changes in anatomy and behavior, and they are still
capable of surviving in the wild.[53][54] House cats often interbreed with feral cats,[37] producing hybrids
such as the Kellas cat in Scotland.[55] Hybridisation between domestic and other small wild cat species is
also possible.[56]

Several natural behaviors and characteristics of wildcats may have preadapted them for domestication as
pets. These traits include their small size, social nature, obvious body language, love of play and relatively
high intelligence.[57]:12–17 Captive Leopardus cats may also display affectionate behavior toward humans,
but have not been domesticated.[54]

Characteristics
Main article: Cat anatomy

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