CATS

Cats are one of the most popular pets. There are over 600 million cats in homes all over
the world. But man's love of cats is not new. Cats and humans have lived together for at
least 9,500 years. The ancient Egyptians treated cats as a very special animal. In 2004,
scientists found the grave of a man buried with a cat in Cyprus from a time before the
ancient Egyptians. Cats, it seems, are unique.

Unlike dogs, modern cats are not very different from their ancestors who lived thousands
of years ago. Cat owners value their pets for their companionship, as well as their ability
to hunt mice, snakes, vermin and other unwanted household pests. And cats can really
help their owners in other ways. Doctors recommend owning a cat to help patients recover
from a serious illness. Caring for a loving, playful animal boosts the immune system and
makes one feel good about life.

But cats always remain fiercely independent. Cats are also quite solitary, self-sufficient
and mysterious. However, with a little effort and help from cat experts, it is possible to
understand a cat’s behaviour better.
Although most cat owners feed their pets daily, cats still hunt mice, birds and other small
animals. Cats like to present their prey to their owners as a gift. This is the cat's way of
telling their owner that they accept them as the boss.

A cat's tail also shows the animal's wild and untamed nature. Tail-wagging in dogs is a
sign that the animal is happy. But the opposite is true for cats. Cats move their tails from
side to side when they are unhappy. When a cat is angry the whole tail moves from the
base to the tip.

Cats including domesticated cats have a scent organ in the roof of their mouths called the
vomeronasal, or Jacobson's organ. When a cat wrinkles its muzzle, raises its chin, and lets
its tongue hang a bit, it is opening the passage to the vomeronasal. This is called the
Flehmen response.
Cats have excellent nocturnal and diurnal vision; an organ called the tapetum lucidum is
responsible for their strong low-light vision, as well as for the varied colours of cats' eyes in
flash photographs. As with most carnivores their eyes are both forward facing affording
depth perception at the expense of field of view. Cats are weakly trichromatic.

Cats have a third eyelid, which is a thin cover that appears when you open the cat's eyelid.
This is called the nictitating membrane. If a cat is sick, this membrane will partially close.
This is a sign that the cat needs immediate veterinary attention. Sometimes, however, if
your cat is very sleepy and happy, they will show this membrane.

The sound a cat makes is written "meow" in American English, "miaow" in British English
and various other ways in other languages. Cats can also produce a purring noise that is
immensely pleasurable to many humans. Some cats growl or hiss when they see other
cats on their territory.

Virtually all cats have straight upward ears. Unlike dogs, flap-eared breeds are very rare.
Scottish Folds is one such exceptional genetic mutation.
History and mythology

The earliest written records of cat domestication date to ancient Egypt circa 4000 BC, to
keep mice and rats away from their grain stores. However, a recently discovered gravesite
in Shillourokambos, Cyprus, dating to 7500 BC contains the skeletons of a ceremonially
buried human and a young cat, although cats are not native to Cyprus. This is thought to
indicate that cats were domesticated (or perhaps just tamed) at least this early. The cat
found in the Cyprus grave was more similar to the ancestral wildcat species than to
modern housecats.

Ancient Egyptians regarded cats as embodiments of the goddess Bast, also known as
Bastet or Thet; the penalty for killing a cat was death, and when a cat died it was
sometimes mummified in the same way as a human. In the Middle Ages, though, cats
were often thought to be witches' familiars, and during festivities were sometimes burnt
alive or thrown off tall buildings. Today some people believe that white cats are unlucky, or
that it is unlucky if a black cat crosses your path, but others believe that black cats are
lucky.

The cat is one of the 12-year cycle of animals in the Vietnamese zodiac. It does not,
however, appear in the Chinese zodiac. Legend states that the rat, who invited the animals
to the Jade Emperor's palace to be chosen for the zodiac, forgot to invite the cat, so the
cat declared the rat its natural enemy.

Domestication

Cats are kept for companionship as pets, and to hunt mice and rats. Farms often have
dozens of cats, living semi-wild in the barns. Hunting in the barns and the fields, they kill
and eat rodents that would otherwise eat large parts of the grain crop. (Many pet cats
successfully hunt and kill mice, birds and fish by instinct, but might not eat their prey).
Feral cats may live alone or in large groups called colonies with communal nurseries,
depending on resource availability.

Like many other domesticated animals, cats lived in a mutualistic arrangement with
humans. The benefit of removing rats and mice from humans' food stores outweighed the
cost of allowing a formerly-wild animal to enjoy the relative safety of a human settlement;
hence, the relationship between cat and human has continued. However, unlike other
domesticated species, housecats' ancestors did not hunt socially or enjoy the safety of a
herd, as other domesticated animals did. This evolutionary history may be the reason cats
do not "understand" the desires of humans in the same way that dogs do; before humans,
cats had fewer social relationships to benefit from. This may also contribute to a sense
common among pet owners that cats are both more aloof and more self-sufficient than
other pets. However, cats can be very affectionate towards their humans, especially if they
imprint on them at a very young age and are treated with consistent affection.

Some environmentalists claim that the domestication of cats is of harm to the environment.
The reason they state is that due to feeding from humans, cats have reached population
levels that are impossible for any natural carnivore. This is believed to result in the
overhunting of many small animals in populated areas, possibly hurting the food chain.

Varieties of domestic cat

Breeds

The list of cat breeds lists the many cat breeds. Each breed has distinct features and
heritage. Due to common cross-breeding in populated areas, many cats are simply
identified as belonging to the homogeneous breeds of domestic longhair and domestic
shorthair, depending on their type of fur.

Variety

Cats come in a variety of colors and patterns. However, these colors and patterns are
physical properties and should not be confused with a breed of cat. Calico is white with
distinct black or red (or blue and cream in the dilute variant) spots. The Japanese refer to
this pattern as mi-ke. Tortoiseshell pattern is black with red and white mottled throughout
the coat. The dilute of this pattern is referred to as blue-cream. Bicolor cats are partly white
with areas of color. A tabby cat is a striped cat. The tabby pattern has a variety of patterns.
The classic pattern is the most common and consists of butterflies and bullseyes. The
mackeral tabby is a series of vertical stripes down the cat's side (resembling the fish). This
pattern broken into spots is referred to as spotted tabby. (See also cat coat genetics).

Household cats are grouped into a smaller number of types according to basic physical
appearance:

 Domestic longhaired cat

 Domestic shorthaired cat
 Oriental cat (not a specific breed, but any cat with an elongated slender build,
almond-shaped eyes, large ears and very short sleek fur)

Some of the basic feline coloration patterns also have names:

 Maltese cat
 Tabby cat
 Tortoiseshell cat (also known as 'calico cat' or 'torty')
 Tuxedo cat or 'Jellicle cat'
The speed of spread of the Black Death in the 14th century had many people (religion
being the way of life) believing that the Devil was in some way responsible for the disease.
This thought lead the Pope to declare that cats, who were known to roam freely, were in
league with the devil. This declaration was aided by the belief that cats often acted as
Witches' familiars. Because of the declaration, a great many cats were killed in the very
religious Europe. The sudden decrease in cats lead to a massive increase in rats - and the
plague-carrying fleas that fed upon them.