The first
full genome of a cat did not appear until 2007, but in 2014 a higher quality
map of an Abyssinian cat named Cinnamon was published. And now since the price
for DNA analysis has dropped, further study into a cat’s genome could then be
done. An evolutionary geneticist from the Institut Jacques Monod in Paris named
Eva-Maria Geigl presented her research on the mitochondrial DNA of 209 domestic
cats that were found at 30 different archeological sites in Europe, Africa, and
the Middle East. To give you an idea the history of cats span all the way from
the dawn of agriculture to the 18th century.
There were
found to be two waves in which the spread of cats occurred. The first was in
the eastern Mediterranean and Turkey when agriculture first appeared. It is
theorized that there were wild cats that would run off the rodents that tried
to eat the farmers’ crop. So the farmers wanted them to stick around to help
them out, which eventually lead to domestic breeds. The second wave was found
by looking at the mitochondrial DNA lineage from Egypt, showing that the cats
began appearing in Bulgaria, Turkey, and sub-Saharan Africa between the times
of the fourth century B.C. and the fourth century A.D. The researchers theorize
that the cats were kept on ships to help with rodents, and were spread at port
cities. This came from the fact that the team found a cat in North Germany that
dated back between 700 and 1000 A.D. that had Egyptian mitochondrial DNA.
It has been
believed for years that cats became domesticated in Egypt about 4000 years ago.
But based on findings that cat bones had been discovered buried in a 9,500 year
old human burial in Cyprus along with Geigl’s findings shows that cats have had
a history with humans for a lot longer than first thought. Geigl also
discovered by looking at the nuclear DNA of some of the samples that in the
Middle Ages the mutation for tabby cats appeared, and that further study could
lead to more information. As a cat lover and owner of many cats, I found this
article to be very interesting and informative. I had no idea that cats had
this kind of history.
This is a pretty cool technique for finding out the origination of a species, especially with the costs coming down. I think that this could also be useful in seeing how much a species has changed over time and how/why that happened by looking at both inside and outside factors.
ReplyDeleteIt always interests me to think about the domestication of modern day pets. A few thousand years ago someone had a pretty off the wall idea to get friendly with a wild beast out in the field. Pretty soon people were using cats for pest control and dogs for all kinds of things. Cats long and industrious career as domesticated pets has changed them significantly from what they were in the past. Domestication happening in two separate waves under different circumstances also makes it seem as though it was bound to happen no matter what.
ReplyDeleteJenea,
ReplyDeleteI love cats, but I don't think that I would have went up to a random one, one day before they were domesticated and said, "You're going to be my friend." If you ever have ever been exposed to a wild feline, then you are in for a treat. They are much more suspicious of humans then dogs are. I think this is because they were domesticated more recently than dogs were. Dogs have a more natural trust of humans while cats, well, you have to work for it. I would love to know Luna's origin just because I literally always say that her ancestors were the cats of Egypt because she loves to be worshipped. Great blog. I really enjoyed this study and I found it interesting that looking at the nuclear DNA of cats they could find out when the mutation for tabbies occurred!
It is interesting to learn about how a species is domesticated. For a species to be domesticated in different locations must mean that we as humans found them to be of great benefit.
ReplyDelete