Darlene Arden - Beautiful Cats: Portraits of champion breeds

The sight of a contented cat can be very calming in itself; it is hard to be anxious while watching a cat sleep.

T HE BIOLOGICAL FAMILY OF CATS is known as felidae. This is divided into two parts: the pantherinae, which includes lions, tigers, jaguars, and leopards and snow leopards; and felinae, which includes ocelots, cougars, cheetahs, lynxes, wildcats, and the domestic cat. In prehistoric times, there were saber-toothed cats from a now-extinct third part of the felidae family, machairodontinae. These early cats were obligate carnivoresmeaning they survived on a diet mainly of meatas are todays domestic cats.

Our understanding of the evolution of cats has greatly increased in recent years through the work of geneticists. An article published in 2006 in the journal Science examined the results of a study of the DNA of 37 living species of felidae, which confirmed that the subfamilies pantherinae and felinae can be divided into eight distinct lineages. The researchers, led by Warren E. Johnson and Stephen J. OBrien, drew a family tree and assigned the various cats to these lineages.

The first extant lineage to split from the prehistoric Pseudaelurus cats was pantherinae; this occured around 10.8 million years ago. The pantherinae lineage is made up of the genera Panthera, Neofelis, and Uncia. Due to the unique structure of their larynx and their flexible hyoid bone, lions, tigers, jaguars, and leopards are the only cats that can roar.

The researchers also proposed that there were at least ten intercontinental migrations of these various cat lineages. Being excellent predators, they survived quite well wherever they went. One of the earliest migrations occurred between 8 and 8.5 million years ago, when cats migrated from Asia to North America by crossing the Bering land bridge. In turn, direct ancestors of later lineages crossed from North America back into Eurasia.

The most recent lineage to develop was Felis, which includes the wildcat (Felis silvestris) and the modern domestic cat (Felis catus or Felis silvestris catus). Domestic cats have much in common with their wild ancestors. Our housecats still have flexible bodies, move quickly, and are great hunters. But thousands of years of living near and among humans has also turned them into wonderful companions for people.

Like its wild ancestor, todays Felis catus, or domestic cat, is often an agile and successful hunter.

A HISTORY OF CATS & HUMANS

I T IS THOUGHT THAT CATS first started to live alongside humans around 10,000 years ago in Southwest Asia, when agriculture was in its early days, or established enough to be attractive to cats. Always intelligent, cats began to make their homes near people to be near the food supply as well as mice and scraps of food. Their prowess in keeping down the rodent population would certainly have been attractive to the people the cats placed themselves near.

The earliest archaelogical evidence of cats living with humans is a gravesite from around 7,500 BCE (the Neolithic Period). The gravesite was discovered in Cyprus. It contained the skeleton of a human and that of a young cat, buried at the same time, and a number of other offerings.

It is well known that cats were worshipped as gods in Egypt. The ancient Egyptians thought that the rays of the sun were kept in cats eyes at night for safekeeping.

Similarly, though not to quite the same extent as in Egypt, cats were held in high regard in ancient Rome, and were the only animals allowed to walk freely around temples.

However, in some later periods of European history, cats have suffered greatly at the hands of humans. In the Middle Ages cats were considered to be in cahoots with the devil and were killed in great numbers. Sadly this had grave consequences during the Black Death, when a thriving cat population could have killed the rats that were carrying the infected fleasif only anyone had realized it. Later, during the Renaissance, many thought that cats were witches familiars, leading to cats being killed in large numbers.