Cats Crossed Continents to Be Close To Us, Says Gene Study!

It may seem as though cats don’t need us, however, a new study into feline genetics has indicated that the global kitty population only boomed when they moved in with humans.

The research, which was presented and reported by Nature, seems to show two distinct waves of growth in cat numbers:

first around 10,000 years ago, as humans first started cultivating crops, and second, when we started taking to the seas.

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The researchers behind the study did sequencing on DNA from more than 200 cats of various generations discovered in tombs, burial sites, and other archaeological sites, from as far back as 15,000 years ago, to animals born in the 1700s. Even among this limited sample, they discovered links in mitochondrial DNA, genetic information passed down through the maternal line only — suggesting that cat families had either moved or been taken near to human civilizations. This mitochondrial connection was spotted between wild cats which were found in the Middle East and creatures discovered close to the fertile east Mediterranean, a region well-known for its early agriculture. Researchers also found many connections between cats that lived millennia later, linking mummified kitties discovered in Egyptian tombs with cats found as far away as Bulgaria, Turkey, and sub-Saharan Africa.

Agriculture was a catalyst for cat populations, the study’s authors are claiming because the need to store grain and other crops drew nearby rodents — rodents that in turn became food for wily felines. Ancient humans presumably appreciated that these new arrivals were helping keep their stores free from infestation, and as a bonus, were super cute. A second population explosion appeared to coincide right along with the advent of boat travel, where a ship’s cat could keep vital food stores safe from rats and mice that stowed away on board. Perhaps the most exciting part of all the study is the mention that a cat was discovered in a thousand-year-old Viking burial site, conjuring up the image of horn-hatted kitties sailing the ocean on longboats.

The report’s authors suggest it represents some of the first serious studies into how cats came to live alongside us.

“We don’t know the history of ancient cats,” evolutionary geneticist and study author Eva-Maria Geigl claims. “We do not know their origin, we don’t know how their dispersal occurred.”

As befitting the animals themselves, cats are still a great mystery while dogs, on the other hand, have had their backgrounds carefully mapped out. However, that’s probably only fair — dogs used to be wolves, and now look at what we’ve done to them.