[FEL-L] House Cats' Wild Ancestor Found

[GemOJungle at aol.com]

House Cats' Wild Ancestor Found
By _Jeanna  Bryner_ 
(http://www.livescience.com/php/contactus/author.php?r=jbr) , LiveScience Staff Writer 
posted: 28 June 2007 02:04 pm ET

 
 
 
 
Domestic cats have been traced back to a single wild ancestor whose relatives 
 still live in the remote deserts of the Middle East today.  
The transformation of a vicious predator into a docile tabby took place some  
10,000 years ago, a new genetic analysis suggests. That is the same time 
_humans_ (http://www.livescience.com/health/060308_human_evolve.html)   adopted an 
agricultural lifestyle in the Fertile Crescent. So the first of the  friendly 
cats likely acted as a mouse hunter for grain-storage areas.  
“We think that was the beginning of one of the most interesting natural  
history experiments ever done,” said Stephen O’Brien, a geneticist at the  
National Cancer Institute in Maryland, “which is the changing of a wild,  ferocious 
predator into a friendly mouser that decided to hang its wagon on  humankind.” 
 
Until now, scientists knew close to nil about the genetic relationships  
between different types of cats, including wild versus domestic varieties.  
Well-kempt _housecats_ 
(http://www.livescience.com/strangenews/060803_tgondii_culture.html)   can and often do breed with wild species, which has made it 
tricky for  scientists to distinguish between a hybrid wild-domestic feline and 
a purely  wild or house variety.  
Kitty genes  
The key difference between the two is behavior. Domestic cats can live in  
groups and are generally not afraid of people. Since behavioral analyses of a  
large and diverse group of cats would be nearly impossible, an international  
research team turned to _genetics_ 
(http://www.livescience.com/health/060529_mm_genes.html) .  
Carlos Driscoll of the National Cancer Institute and his colleagues analyzed  
genetic material from nearly 1,000 cats, including domestic cats and the wild 
 cat subspecies: the European wildcat, Near Eastern wildcat, Central Asian  
wildcat, southern African wildcat and Chinese desert cat.  
They found that each wild group represents a subspecies of the wildcat  Felis 
silvestris. The DNA from domestic cats matched up with that of  the Near 
Eastern wildcat subspecies _Felis  silvestris lybica_ 
(http://www.livescience.com/php/multimedia/imagedisplay/img_display.php?pic=070627_felis_silvestris_02.jpg&
cap=The+wildcat,+Felis+silvestris+lybica,+which+was+trapped+in+Israel+as+part+
of+the+recent+study.+Credit:+Science&title=House+Cats'+Wild+Ancestor+Found) , 
which lives in the remote deserts of Israel and  Saudi Arabia.  
They detail the results this week in the online version of the journal  
Science.  
Feline family  
The lineage that includes the _domestic cat_ 
(http://www.livescience.com/animals/070114_lost_pets.html)   and its wild relatives originated earlier than 
previously thought, about 130,000  years ago.  
The cats probably took two separate routes out of the Middle East, the  
scientists speculate. One group trekked to Egypt while the others traveled from  
Mesopotamia to India, then to China and much later made their way to Japan.  
As to when domestic cats popped onto the scene, Driscoll said they don’t have 
 the information to make a valid estimate.  
To solve that puzzle, scientists are turning to written historical records  
and archaeological evidence. For instance, Egyptian tomb paintings indicate 
that  by 3,600 years ago domestic cats were living in Egypt, Driscoll said. And a 
cat  and human burial site dating back 9,500 years was unearthed in Cyprus 
recently.  
A possible boon to this puzzle, O’Brien mentioned, is the completion of the  
cat genome. O’Brien and his colleagues sequenced and characterized the genetic 
 material from a domestic cat named Cinnamon living in Columbia, Missouri. 
They  hope to find specific genes related to cat tameness. 






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