"Taken together, these studies significantly alter our understanding of one of humanity's most familiar companions. Rather than silently trailing behind early farmers, slinking ever closer to human activity and community, cats likely moved into Europe in multiple waves post-domestication from North Africa, propelled by human cultural practices, trade networks, and religious reverence."
And of course being able to eliminate pest populations responsible for disease transmission, food spoilage, equipment/infrastructure damage, and other various harms has earned cats that seat in the pantheons of cultures around the globe.
"Food spoilage" is putting it mildly. Mice have short generations. A single mouse can have up to ten litters in one year. If unchecked, a mouse population will quickly turn all your stored food into mice.
Are cats actually effective at pest control or is that cat propaganda? How would cats operate in these societies?
I know they can catch pests but are they effective at controlling them? Maybe they will limit the growth of pests, so better than nothing. Most cats catch for fun rather than food I think
Maybe we had much more cats around for this purpose, if so I'd imagine there is some archeological proof.
I mean, you don't need archeological evidence given that there's a vast amount of historical evidence of cats being kept for pest control as well as companionship. Even the Western world was largely agrarian just a hundred years ago! And farm cats are still a common thing. Free-roaming cats are also a massive threat to bird populations in many places – cats are just very effective predators and birds reproduce much slower than mice and voles.
> Toxoplasmosis is a common infection that you can catch from the poo of infected cats, or infected meat. It's usually harmless but can cause serious problems in some people
The UK governments approach to using normal, simple language across all its web assets is fantastic.
Wolverines have soft tummies too. That we see cats as cute is not so much that they have evolved to be cute. They look little different than wild cats. We see the palus cat as cute but pet its tummy and you will lose some organs. Those humans who protected and nutured cats were better survivors. Having cats around gave them an advantage over people who were indiferent to cats. We finding them cute is a trait that has evolved in us.
Cat people never seem to have a need to boost their egos and take jabs at dog people in discussions about dogs. Only (a certain type of) dog people seem to do so. Insecurity? Inferiority complex?
Maybe toxoplasmosis makes you a better person? It is my experience that cat owners are overwhelmingly nice, empathetic human beings. There does not seem to be such correlation among dog owners.
Domestic cats are a contradiction in terms. They are small wild cats who have partially domesticated hairless apes, and still have a lot of work to do.
I guess I'm trying to get the message of the article.
It's more of an origin story of the current lineage of domestic cats in Europe, no? It sounds like ancient Europeans would have had wildcats and older waves of domesticated felines that were mostly supplanted by the current lineage.
Although not mentioned in the article, I've heard that Egyptians developed a thing for orange cats (supposedly they look like the sun) and embarked on an intensive breeding program to make them for temple uses. Subsequently Vikings became intrigued by these orange cats on the basis they are easy to see on the deck of a ship (iron age hi-viz vests), and thereby spread them around everywhere (because Vikings).
The orange cat coloration (technically "red" or "ginger") is actually due to a sex-linked gene on the X chromosome, not deliberate Egyptian breeding programs. Archaeological evidence doesn't support ancient Egyptian preference for orange cats - their art depicts cats of various colors. Viking-era cat remains show diverse coat colors emerged naturally through genetic drift rather than intentional selection. The spread of orange cats likely occurred through natural genetic distribution alongside human migration patterns.
Only about 80% are male. This is as opposed to torties and calicos, which always by necessity have two X chromosomes (as the patchy pattern results from X-inactivation [1]). The very rare male torties are XXYs.
The interwebs say cats have XY sex determination, and that the orange color gene is on the X chromosome and is recessive. So a male cat with an orange X will be orange, but a female cat needs both X's to be orange to be orange (a female cat with one orange X and one non-orange X will likely show as tortoise shell or calico). Assuming equal probability (P) of each X chromosome being orange so we have a chance at modelling, the males will have P chance of being orange, and females would have P * P chance. Assuming cats have evenly distributed sex,
If P is 90%, 90% of males are orange, and 81% of females are orange; and 47% of orange cats are female. If P is 10%, 10% of males are orange, 1% of females are orange, and ~ 91% of orange cats are male, ~ 9% are female.
This is also equally true for black cats as the genetics works the same for them too.
However, it's more that "female cats can be tortoiseshell" and thus the ratios will get somewhere around a 2:1 ratio of male orange cats to female orange cats.
Assume that you've got 50% tortie females, 25% orange female, and 25% black female... and 50% orange male and 50% black male. You can run Montecarlo simulations on that but it will always be the case that orange (and black) cats are predominantly male because of the smaller number of options.
There's also the increased visibility of the "trouble puffs" on a male orange cat (compared to black male) and so conformation bias of "yep, that's an orange male cat."
I hear this anytime orange cats come up in conversation and I don't quite get it - I had an orange cat when I was in high school and he was a very clever cat. I now have an orange female cat and she's got a big personality - very take-charge in her demands.
I always figured that the cat's ability to eliminate vermin, particularly on ships, propelled their domestication and spread. This was simply too useful to early humans.
I'm reminded of the Russian silver fox domestication experiment [1]. What's interesting about that is how quickly the species adapts characteristics making them more desirable for humans.
It’s kind of strange to think that early humans would throw some of their hard-earned food to animals that were lurking around. Did they do it out of kindness or did they perceive that they might be able to tame them and put them to work?
Mammals have a strong nurturing instinct, which helps with raising progeny. (So do birds.) Strong enough that it can overflow to members of another species. No calculation or ethical predisposition required, though they would strengthen the resolve.
This is a really interesting aside, because it turns out that until the 60s nobody had actually bothered to take the time to actually measure how much time hunter gatherers spent hunting and gathering. The answer was "not much", usually around 15 hours a week! [1]
This led to the 'original affluent society' paper. [2] The objections to it are quite asinine - like that cooking, cleaning, and other such time was not calculated, but of course such things also aren't counted for modern workers in their hours worked per week. Another objection being high infant mortality which again also applied, until quite recently, to industrial societies as well. It's an apples to apples comparison.
The point of this is that people in the distant past had rather extensive amounts of free time. And so them taking in some pets for fun and entertainment seems highly likely.
"Taken together, these studies significantly alter our understanding of one of humanity's most familiar companions. Rather than silently trailing behind early farmers, slinking ever closer to human activity and community, cats likely moved into Europe in multiple waves post-domestication from North Africa, propelled by human cultural practices, trade networks, and religious reverence."
Being treated like a god will get you everywhere.
And of course being able to eliminate pest populations responsible for disease transmission, food spoilage, equipment/infrastructure damage, and other various harms has earned cats that seat in the pantheons of cultures around the globe.
"Food spoilage" is putting it mildly. Mice have short generations. A single mouse can have up to ten litters in one year. If unchecked, a mouse population will quickly turn all your stored food into mice.
Are cats actually effective at pest control or is that cat propaganda? How would cats operate in these societies?
I know they can catch pests but are they effective at controlling them? Maybe they will limit the growth of pests, so better than nothing. Most cats catch for fun rather than food I think
Maybe we had much more cats around for this purpose, if so I'd imagine there is some archeological proof.
> Most cats catch for fun rather than food
Domestic cats do. Stray cat's hunt for a living.
I mean, you don't need archeological evidence given that there's a vast amount of historical evidence of cats being kept for pest control as well as companionship. Even the Western world was largely agrarian just a hundred years ago! And farm cats are still a common thing. Free-roaming cats are also a massive threat to bird populations in many places – cats are just very effective predators and birds reproduce much slower than mice and voles.
Unfortunately evolution does evolution:
https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/toxoplasmosis/
> Toxoplasmosis is a common infection that you can catch from the poo of infected cats, or infected meat. It's usually harmless but can cause serious problems in some people
The UK governments approach to using normal, simple language across all its web assets is fantastic.
They've published an excellent blog about their language choices at https://digital.nhs.uk/blog/transformation-blog/2019/pee-and...
“crystal mark english” is what to tell your LLM to write in.
And if we're being honest, the whole soft tummies thing and purring probably helped too.
... this thread needs pictures.
Wolverines have soft tummies too. That we see cats as cute is not so much that they have evolved to be cute. They look little different than wild cats. We see the palus cat as cute but pet its tummy and you will lose some organs. Those humans who protected and nutured cats were better survivors. Having cats around gave them an advantage over people who were indiferent to cats. We finding them cute is a trait that has evolved in us.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pallas%27s_cat
Palus (or is it Palius?) cat has round pupils, like ours. Makes them easier to anthropomorphise.
Pallas cat.
It’s toxoplasmosis parasites in the brain that causes the unfathomable love for cats. Those of us still uninfected[0] find it very odd.
[0] dog people
Cat people never seem to have a need to boost their egos and take jabs at dog people in discussions about dogs. Only (a certain type of) dog people seem to do so. Insecurity? Inferiority complex?
Maybe toxoplasmosis makes you a better person? It is my experience that cat owners are overwhelmingly nice, empathetic human beings. There does not seem to be such correlation among dog owners.
> eliminate ... equipment/infrastructure damage
And cause it.
> equipment/infrastructure damage
The Cat has caused extensive damage in my house. I'm still working on repairing it.
Have you considered introducing the Rat to distract the Cat from the infrastructure?
Domestic cats are a contradiction in terms. They are small wild cats who have partially domesticated hairless apes, and still have a lot of work to do.
I always found the conceptual intersection between cats and laptops to be full of coincidences.
Humans sometimes place cats on their laps. The same happens with laptops (hence the name).
Cats and laptops are often seen inside boxes.
Cats and laptops are known to reproduce sounds that are similar to humans but not quite the same.
Future historians will be so confused.
This is why cats are so fond of lying on top of laptops. They're kindred spirits, as it were.
Like laptops, you can sometimes interface directly with them via touch, but it's usually not worth the trouble.
Domestic cats are arguably the most successful mammalian carnivores anywhere.
they hunted us for food once, figured out we’d feed them instead, and never looked back. probably the only species that domesticated us.
To be that guy, small felines never were big felines. Domestic kitties do not descend from people-eating ones.
Dogs have masters; cats have servants.
I guess I'm trying to get the message of the article.
It's more of an origin story of the current lineage of domestic cats in Europe, no? It sounds like ancient Europeans would have had wildcats and older waves of domesticated felines that were mostly supplanted by the current lineage.
This does seem to be European cat oriented rather than "where did domesticated cats come from in the first place?"
https://www.smbc-comics.com/comic/domestication
Although not mentioned in the article, I've heard that Egyptians developed a thing for orange cats (supposedly they look like the sun) and embarked on an intensive breeding program to make them for temple uses. Subsequently Vikings became intrigued by these orange cats on the basis they are easy to see on the deck of a ship (iron age hi-viz vests), and thereby spread them around everywhere (because Vikings).
The orange cat coloration (technically "red" or "ginger") is actually due to a sex-linked gene on the X chromosome, not deliberate Egyptian breeding programs. Archaeological evidence doesn't support ancient Egyptian preference for orange cats - their art depicts cats of various colors. Viking-era cat remains show diverse coat colors emerged naturally through genetic drift rather than intentional selection. The spread of orange cats likely occurred through natural genetic distribution alongside human migration patterns.
From my understanding, orange cats are almost exclusively male.
They also have one shared brain cell.
Source: My family is owned by a marmalade tom.
Only about 80% are male. This is as opposed to torties and calicos, which always by necessity have two X chromosomes (as the patchy pattern results from X-inactivation [1]). The very rare male torties are XXYs.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/X-inactivation
The interwebs say cats have XY sex determination, and that the orange color gene is on the X chromosome and is recessive. So a male cat with an orange X will be orange, but a female cat needs both X's to be orange to be orange (a female cat with one orange X and one non-orange X will likely show as tortoise shell or calico). Assuming equal probability (P) of each X chromosome being orange so we have a chance at modelling, the males will have P chance of being orange, and females would have P * P chance. Assuming cats have evenly distributed sex,
If P is 90%, 90% of males are orange, and 81% of females are orange; and 47% of orange cats are female. If P is 10%, 10% of males are orange, 1% of females are orange, and ~ 91% of orange cats are male, ~ 9% are female.
There was a discussion, here, some time ago, about how the orange gene was isolated.
> orange cats are almost exclusively male
This is also equally true for black cats as the genetics works the same for them too.
However, it's more that "female cats can be tortoiseshell" and thus the ratios will get somewhere around a 2:1 ratio of male orange cats to female orange cats.
Assume that you've got 50% tortie females, 25% orange female, and 25% black female... and 50% orange male and 50% black male. You can run Montecarlo simulations on that but it will always be the case that orange (and black) cats are predominantly male because of the smaller number of options.
There's also the increased visibility of the "trouble puffs" on a male orange cat (compared to black male) and so conformation bias of "yep, that's an orange male cat."
> They also have one shared brain cell.
You will appreciate:
https://www.reddit.com/r/OneOrangeBraincell/
I had an orange female cat. It was on Bali. I think they are quite common there.
> They also have one shared brain cell.
Confirmed. Very early cooperative multitasking.
I hear this anytime orange cats come up in conversation and I don't quite get it - I had an orange cat when I was in high school and he was a very clever cat. I now have an orange female cat and she's got a big personality - very take-charge in her demands.
I have an orange cat, and there are definitely days when it's not his turn.
You've got probably thousands of years between these two events, which undoubtedly contains a lot of feline history.
I always figured that the cat's ability to eliminate vermin, particularly on ships, propelled their domestication and spread. This was simply too useful to early humans.
I'm reminded of the Russian silver fox domestication experiment [1]. What's interesting about that is how quickly the species adapts characteristics making them more desirable for humans.
[1]: https://www.sciencenews.org/article/russian-foxes-tameness-d...
Vermin on ships weren't all bad. They prevented scurvy if you didn't overcook them.
Humans love feeding animals. Some animals love being fed.
Put them together and you have symbiosis.
It’s kind of strange to think that early humans would throw some of their hard-earned food to animals that were lurking around. Did they do it out of kindness or did they perceive that they might be able to tame them and put them to work?
Mammals have a strong nurturing instinct, which helps with raising progeny. (So do birds.) Strong enough that it can overflow to members of another species. No calculation or ethical predisposition required, though they would strengthen the resolve.
This is a really interesting aside, because it turns out that until the 60s nobody had actually bothered to take the time to actually measure how much time hunter gatherers spent hunting and gathering. The answer was "not much", usually around 15 hours a week! [1]
This led to the 'original affluent society' paper. [2] The objections to it are quite asinine - like that cooking, cleaning, and other such time was not calculated, but of course such things also aren't counted for modern workers in their hours worked per week. Another objection being high infant mortality which again also applied, until quite recently, to industrial societies as well. It's an apples to apples comparison.
The point of this is that people in the distant past had rather extensive amounts of free time. And so them taking in some pets for fun and entertainment seems highly likely.
[1] - https://www.rewild.com/in-depth/leisure.html (in spite of the site's name this is an overview of academic literature on the topic)
[2] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Original_affluent_society
Humans have always left edible garbage behind.
[dead]
Uh, cats are entirely capable of feeding themselves. More pertinently, cats feed themselves on things that like to feed themselves on human food.