New study charts evolution of cats from wild animals to domesticated companions

Feng Xue
By Feng Xue
June 19, 2017Science & Tech
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New study charts evolution of cats from wild animals to domesticated companions

Humans have a complex relationship with cats: sometimes affectionate and often mutually beneficial.

It’s a relationship that dates back millennia to the ancient world.

French researcher Eva-Maria Geigl is head of research at the French National Research Center (CNRS) who runs a research group at the Jacques Monod Institute in Paris.

She and colleagues have conducted DNA analysis that has identified how cats spread through the ancient human world.

The researchers analyzed DNA from 209 ancient cats as old as 9,000 years from Europe, Africa and Asia, including some ancient Egyptian cat mummies and also 28 modern feral cats from Bulgaria and east Africa.  

It’s the latest glimpse into the complicated story of domesticated cats, who are descendants of wild ancestors that learned to live with people and became relatively tame.

The domestication process may have begun around 10,000 years ago when people settled in the Fertile Crescent, the arch-shaped region that includes the eastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea and land around the Tigris and Euphrates rivers.

They stored grain, which drew rodents, which in turn attracted wild cats explains Geigl.

“It were (was) the first farmers that invented agriculture, and this means they accumulated grains, probably more and more larger and larger amounts of grains These grains of course attracted rodents and the rodents attracted wild cats.”

Over time, these wild felines adapted to this man-made environment and got used to being around people.

“So it was a commensal (two-way) relationship that started to get established, but it took certainly several thousands of years until the cat really came into a domestic context,” Geigl adds.

A previous study had found a cat buried alongside a human some 9,500 years ago in Cyprus, an island without any native population of felines.

That indicates the cat was brought by boat and it had some special relationship to that person, researchers say.

Cats were clearly tame by about 3,500 years ago in Egypt, where paintings often placed them beneath chairs.

Geigl says that, by this time, “the cat makes its way to the household.” The team analysed ancient Egyptian cat mummies as part of their research. Geigl says that the appearance of domesticated cats in Egypt means they had travelled there by sea, in the company of humans.

“Since we know that there was trading contact between Egypt and India during the Roman empire, this again tells us that these cats were ships’ cats. So they travelled with the merchants over the sea,” she explains.

The dispersal of the cats across the Mediterranean was probably encouraged by their usefulness in controlling rodents and other pests on ships, the researchers say.

Mona Khalil is chairperson of the Egyptian Society of Mercy to Animals (ESMA) in Cairo.

She says the fact that the Ancient Egyptians mummified cats shows they held a special status in their society.

“Ancient Egyptians worshipped cats in large and Egyptian cats specifically was very appreciated to the level of being worshipped and mummified, just like what they did with the Pharaohs themselves, for everything that had value for them.”

It’s easier to distinguish dogs, our first domesticated animal, from their wolf ancestors.

Dogs evolved from wolves that had begun to associate with people even before farming began, perhaps drawn by the food the humans left behind.

The new study tracked the spread of specific cat DNA markers over long distances through time, a sign that people had taken cats with them.

Results were released on Monday by the journal Nature Ecology & Evolution.

Researchers also looked for a genetic variant that produces the blotchy coat pattern typical of modern-day domestic cats, rather than the tiger-like stripes seen in their wild cousins.

It showed up more often in samples from after the year 1300 than earlier ones, which fits with other evidence that the tabby cat markings became common by the 1700s and that people started breeding cats for their appearance in the 1800s.

Most of the study focused on the ancient dispersals of cats.

In the DNA samples analyzed, one genetic signature found first in the Asian portion of Turkey, and perhaps once carried by some Fertile Crescent cats, showed up more than 6,000 years ago in Bulgaria.

That indicates cats had been taken there by boat with the first farmers colonizing Europe, Geigl says.

It also appeared more than 5,000 years ago in Romania, as well as around 3,000 years ago in Greece.

A second genetic signature, first seen in Egypt, had reached Europe between the first and fifth centuries, as shown by a sample from Bulgaria.

It was found in a seventh-century sample from a Viking trading port in northern Europe, and an eighth-century sample from Iran.

Molecular biologist Thierry Grange explains the difference between the African wild cat (Felis Silvestris Lybica), some of which became domesticated in ancient times, and the European wild cat (Felis Silvestris Silvestris), which did not become domesticated.

“Here you see the African wild cat, the species that has been domesticated. You find it in Africa and in the Middle East. And this is the European wild cat, more robust and big.”

Geigl says that an earlier study indicated that all domestic cats originated “from the wild cat in Northern Africa and South West Asia. This is the Lybica, so Felis Silvestris Lybica, whereas in Europe, you have Felis Silvestris Silvestris and this is not the cat that was domesticated.”

Le Parc des Felins at Lumigny-Nesles-Ormeaux east of Paris is home to a variety of cats, including the European wild cat (Felis Silvestris Silvestris), which did not become domesticated.

Zoo keeper, Aurelie Roudel says that cats would eat vermin, meaning people encouraged the relationship to protect food stores.

“The cats lived close to the humans, merchants and armies and so on, in order to guard the food resources and to chase rats and mice.”

(AP)

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