[HN Gopher] The complex origin story of domestic cats
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The complex origin story of domestic cats
Author : gmays
Score : 67 points
Date : 2025-04-22 18:07 UTC (4 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (phys.org)
(TXT) w3m dump (phys.org)
| lenerdenator wrote:
| "Taken together, these studies significantly alter our
| understanding of one of humanity's most familiar companions.
| Rather than silently trailing behind early farmers, slinking ever
| closer to human activity and community, cats likely moved into
| Europe in multiple waves post-domestication from North Africa,
| propelled by human cultural practices, trade networks, and
| religious reverence."
|
| Being treated like a god will get you everywhere.
| OneDeuxTriSeiGo wrote:
| And of course being able to eliminate pest populations
| responsible for disease transmission, food spoilage,
| equipment/infrastructure damage, and other various harms has
| earned cats that seat in the pantheons of cultures around the
| globe.
| lenerdenator wrote:
| And if we're being honest, the whole soft tummies thing and
| purring probably helped too.
|
| ... this thread needs pictures.
| sshine wrote:
| > _eliminate ... equipment /infrastructure damage_
|
| And cause it.
| dboreham wrote:
| Although not mentioned in the article, I've heard that Egyptians
| developed a thing for orange cats (supposedly they look like the
| sun) and embarked on an intensive breeding program to make them
| for temple uses. Subsequently Vikings became intrigued by these
| orange cats on the basis they are easy to see on the deck of a
| ship (iron age hi-viz vests), and thereby spread them around
| everywhere (because Vikings).
| ChrisMarshallNY wrote:
| From my understanding, orange cats are almost exclusively male.
|
| They also have one shared brain cell.
|
| Source: My family is owned by a marmalade tom.
| toast0 wrote:
| The interwebs say cats have XY sex determination, and that
| the orange color gene is on the X chromosome and is
| recessive. So a male cat with an orange X will be orange, but
| a female cat needs both X's to be orange to be orange (a
| female cat with one orange X and one non-orange X will likely
| show as tortoise shell or calico). Assuming equal probability
| (P) of each X chromosome being orange so we have a chance at
| modelling, the males will have P chance of being orange, and
| females would have P * P chance. Assuming cats have evenly
| distributed sex,
|
| If P is 90%, 90% of males are orange, and 81% of females are
| orange; and 47% of orange cats are female. If P is 10%, 10%
| of males are orange, 1% of females are orange, and ~ 91% of
| orange cats are male, ~ 9% are female.
| ChrisMarshallNY wrote:
| There was a discussion, here, some time ago, about how the
| orange gene was isolated.
| mlhpdx wrote:
| > They also have one shared brain cell.
|
| Confirmed. Very early cooperative multitasking.
| whartung wrote:
| I have an orange cat, and there are definitely days when
| it's not his turn.
| shagie wrote:
| > orange cats are almost exclusively male
|
| This is also equally true for black cats as the genetics
| works the same for them too.
|
| However, it's more that "female cats can be tortoiseshell"
| and thus the ratios will get somewhere around a 2:1 ratio of
| male orange cats to female orange cats.
|
| Assume that you've got 50% tortie females, 25% orange female,
| and 25% black female... and 50% orange male and 50% black
| male. You can run Montecarlo simulations on that but it will
| always be the case that orange (and black) cats are
| predominantly male because of the smaller number of options.
|
| There's also the increased visibility of the "trouble puffs"
| on a male orange cat (compared to black male) and so
| conformation bias of "yep, that's an orange male cat."
| trollied wrote:
| > They also have one shared brain cell.
|
| You will appreciate:
|
| https://www.reddit.com/r/OneOrangeBraincell/
| mapt wrote:
| You've got probably thousands of years between these two
| events, which undoubtedly contains a lot of feline history.
| ethan_smith wrote:
| The orange cat coloration (technically "red" or "ginger") is
| actually due to a sex-linked gene on the X chromosome, not
| deliberate Egyptian breeding programs. Archaeological evidence
| doesn't support ancient Egyptian preference for orange cats -
| their art depicts cats of various colors. Viking-era cat
| remains show diverse coat colors emerged naturally through
| genetic drift rather than intentional selection. The spread of
| orange cats likely occurred through natural genetic
| distribution alongside human migration patterns.
| lenerdenator wrote:
| I guess I'm trying to get the message of the article.
|
| It's more of an origin story of the current lineage of domestic
| cats _in Europe_ , no? It sounds like ancient Europeans would
| have had wildcats and older waves of domesticated felines that
| were mostly supplanted by the current lineage.
| jmyeet wrote:
| I always figured that the cat's ability to eliminate vermin,
| particularly on ships, propelled their domestication and spread.
| This was simply too useful to early humans.
|
| I'm reminded of the Russian silver fox domestication experiment
| [1]. What's interesting about that is how quickly the species
| adapts characteristics making them more desirable for humans.
|
| [1]: https://www.sciencenews.org/article/russian-foxes-
| tameness-d...
| rufus_foreman wrote:
| Vermin on ships weren't all bad. They prevented scurvy if you
| didn't overcook them.
| ghaff wrote:
| Domestic cats are arguably the most successful mammalian
| carnivores anywhere.
| EasyMarion wrote:
| they hunted us for food once, figured out we'd feed them
| instead, and never looked back. probably the only species that
| domesticated us.
| mannyv wrote:
| Humans love feeding animals. Some animals love being fed.
|
| Put them together and you have symbiosis.
| delichon wrote:
| Domestic cats are a contradiction in terms. They are small wild
| cats who have partially domesticated hairless apes, and still
| have a lot of work to do.
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