I recall reading a comment once that domesticated cats and dogs were the ones who lost the skittishness factor. Wild animals have a variable elvel of skittishness, that common sense that tells them to stay away from larger and threatening animals. Cats that ran from the granaries when humans approached ate less well than those that didn’t. So basically, domestic cats are the ones too stupid to run away.
(Similarly, dogs were the ones that munched on human discards at ancient garbage dumps. Since they were useful in warning of approaching danger, then ones that stuck around and didn’t run away from us were the most useful)
Cats that go feral are plenty skittish, and that can happen in one generation, so I doubt that there has been all that much selection against skittishness by itself. Cat rescuers will tell you that most cats can eventually be brought around to some degree, although some take a very long time, and remain very skittish. Others can become almost perfectly domesticated.
Desmond Morris hypothesises that a cat’s relationship to humans is learnt from their mother, and that domestication is at least in part - it not mostly - not a genetic trait. Not everyone agrees.
Cats that are handled as very young kittens by a number of different humans tend to become comfortable with any human, whilst those that are not can become quite domesticated, but are often only comfortable around their primary human, and will bolt if a stranger approaches.
As far as their ‘Meow’ sound, there’s good evidence that it is comparable to a human baby sound, so domestic cats quickly learn that these ‘human-type thingies’ seem to respond well to this silly kitty sound I can still make, so I’ll keep doing it. If you have cats one thing you’ll notice is adult cats *never *meow at each other, only people. They’ll howl, growl, make the most ungodly noises imaginable at each other (sometimes serious, sometimes just playing) but they only ever ‘meow’ for humans (or for mom when they’re still kittens).
Where did domesticated cats come from? Well, let’s see. In the case of my cats,
– Shiloh came from Pefferlaw, Ontario.
– Fiona came from Drumheller, Alberta.
– Hope came from Cochrane, Alberta.
– Tigger and Stripe both came from Calgary, Alberta.
Yup. My one cat will meow for all sorts of reasons. The other is effectively mute, though very rarely he will make a single pseudo-meow, more like a buzzer than a mew.
Usually in the bathroom, for some reason.
They dont meow at each other either, but I have noticed them having little meetings, where they make tiny little noises, glance and gesture with their noses, and then act in unison.
The nosier one will often come to get me, leading me to the door where the quiet cat wants in or out. Thus satisfied, noisy cat will go back to what he was doing.
They will make the most god-aweful racket known to man for half an hour, spend a few seconds copulating, fight, and then never see each other again, except to hiss and spit at each other in the street.
That’s funny, unpleasant as it is for cat and human, ‘getting fixed’ saves countless countless cats and kittens from a miserable life and certain death.
Where did my mother’s cats come from? They just showed up at her door, eventually working their way into the family. Their origin? Unspayed females allowed to breed, because the kittens are so cute for a few months.
The meow bit is interesting. My evil critters have all been rescues, and they tend not to be very vocal, nothing on human reared kittens. But they still have some of the usual vocal habits. Some seem to be developed only as part of the human exchange. The mixed purr-meow, which in some cats almost becomes a pigeon like coo. A one of my critters will make a curious meow when jumping off the bed, a sort of ooph-meow as he hits the floor, as did a previous beastie, yet his brother does not make such a noise (indeed you would be lucky to get a meow a week out of him). This noise is odd, I’m sure it is for my benefit, but I can’t really see what purpose he thinks it serves. Often it precedes his exit via the cat-door, so it isn’t attention/food seeking.
But they all purr like a Harley at full throttle.
Really sick cats can become uncharacteristicly vocal.
Not much. The BBC article is conflating a couple of things from the scientific paper it is based on. The 131,000 year ago split was between European and Near Eastern populations of the wildcat and was the study that firmed up the idea that all domestic cats derive from the Near Eastern subspecies. However it had nothing to say about the timing of domestication other than the authors speculate that it was in fact concomitant with the rise of agriculture in the Fertile Crescent - i.e. the standard hypothesis.
Or in other words, domestic cats per se didn’t diverge from their wild counterparts ~130,000 years ago. Rather the domestic cat’s wild ancestors diverged from other conspecific wild populations ~130k years ago. Presumably subsequent gene flow between the populations was fairly limited, which under some species concepts might even be enough to set them up as separate species ( i.e. the presumption that the two populations are on separate “evolutionary trajectories” ).
This may be the key part. Cats could co-exist with humans at a distance. Even feral domesticated cats who will run from a direct approach by humans will stay in close proximity. Perhaps that is a trait evolved in domestic cats, but unlike wolves that had to develop specific traits to co-exist with humans, the smaller cats could maintain a lifetiime of proximity without direct interaction. Over many generations, cats who were more appealing to humans would have been favored, given extra food, had their kittens cared for (young cats survival rate climbs if they are provided some food while they develop their hunting skills). In addition, unlike the undomesticated ancestors of dogs, the small cats were no direct threat to humans.
