Cats are our oldest friends
Submitted by coldrum on Tuesday, 03 July 2007 Page Views: 983
Other ArchaeologyThe dog is usually thought of as man's best friend. But a genetic study published today suggests that cats may actually have been a more constant companion of humans over the millennia.Ancestors of domestic cats are now believed to have started living alongside humans any time from about 10,000 to 130,000 years ago. In the case of dogs, an earlier DNA study showed that they originated from east Asian wolves a mere 15,000 years ago.
The new DNA evidence shows that cats around the world can trace their origins to the Fertile Crescent of the Middle East, which stretches from the eastern Mediterranean to the Persian Gulf, revealing how at least five female ancestors from the region gave rise to all the domestic cats alive today.
The "ubermoggy" - the ancestor of these founding felines - was a wildcat of the species F.s. libyca, which lives on today in the remote deserts of the Middle East.
For the study, published today in the journal Science, an international team studied genetic material from 979 domestic cats and their wild relatives, focusing on one kind of genetic material, called mitochondrial DNA.
Prof David Macdonald, who worked with Carlos Driscoll at Oxford University, said: "We found five distinct lineages dating back a hundred thousand years prior to any archaeological record of cat domestication. These appear to come from at least five female cats from the Near East whose descendants have been transported across the world by humans."
The earliest archaeological evidence for cat domestication only stretches back 9,500 years ago and is found in Cyprus.
However, the new research shows that cats probably domesticated themselves at first, attracted by the rats and mice that lived around human settlements when hunter-gatherers settled in agricultural villages in the Fertile Crescent up to 130,000 years ago.
When early farmers in this region migrated to new areas, such as Europe and the Americas, they probably brought the cats with them.
The research also suggests that, aside from accidental cross-breeding, European wildcats are not part of the domestic cat's family tree. Nor are the central Asian or southern African wildcat, or the Chinese desert cat.
Prof Macdonald said the work would help efforts to conserve the Scottish wildcat - Britain's most endangered carnivore - which is blighted by cross-breeding with feral moggies.
Until now, researchers have known little about the genetic differences among cats. Many wild and domestic cats look so much alike that it can be hard to tell which is which. But the study has revealed a tell-tale genetic marker that can be used for identification of the Scottish wildcat, which is estimated to be only 500 in number.
telegraph.
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