I spotted a documentary on Amazon Prime titled the Lion in Your Living Room. Which I managed to watch for about five minutes. I bailed at the point when a talking head opined that if cats wanted to keep living with humans "they were going to have to change." Beh.
At the same time there was an article linked on FB on How Cats Domesticated Themselves. Humans started farming, grain attracts rodents and other scavengers. Critters that the small wild cats living in Egypt, the Middle East, and China were already hunting. Cats that may have looked like this.
A European wild cat.
A Chinese Mountain Cat.
A Persian Sand Cat.
A Pallas Cat range through Central Asia. Actually about the size of a house cat under all that fur. It gets cold in those mountains and winter lasts a long time. Also a stockier build and shorter legs. A body type found among many animals that have to endure long, cold winters.
Look awfully familar don't they? Except that ourS hang around the farmstead, house, whatever cats apparently didn't have the tabby markings until the fifteen to sixteen hundreds. Kind of funny actually since most of these wild breeds have tabby markings.
When you work down the genetics lions belong in the panthera family. Cheetas and cougars are in another offshoot. And you finally get to the smaller members of the cat family. The felines, that includes our semi domesticated house cats, are in a family by themselves. The Scots have a version of the mountain cat but apparently there has been interbreeding with domesticated cats and only a small portion of the population "pure" bred.
If our house, barn, field cats can interbreed with their wild cousins and produce viable offspring they are not a separate species. Just as dogs can interbreed with wolves.
And how do housecats behave. Yes they like to cuddle. They also sneak, stalk, and like to find at least three places to hide out. All behaviors you would expect in a wild cat who has to sneak, stalk and find hidey holes where somebody bigger than they are can use them forllunch.
And can you imagine a lion stooping to eating a mouse?
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