Okay this is the piece where am going to pour out my hearts’ concern over cat world domination. Some people might find this “eccentricity” bizarre, but I’ve always warned people around me over an impending cat apocalypse, pointing out how these manipulative little devils keep observing us, staring, and plotting their move in their seedy underground meeting place but all people ever do is run after them blabbering about how cute they are.
Well now I finally have some evidence. Scratch that. We now have some real good evidence about how they are indeed capable of carrying out their strike.
A study was conducted by Paleogeneticist Claudio Ottoni and his colleagues from KU Leuven (University of Leuven) and the Royal Belgian Institute of Natural Sciences by surveying the DNA from bones, teeth, skin, and hair of over 200 cats found at archaeological sites in the Near East, Africa, and Europe. What was found is simply astonishing (Eerie in my case). Cats through a number of studies earlier were believed to be either 4, 000 years old from Egypt or present in China some 5, 000 years ago.
According to the new study, the species have now been found to be at
least 9, 000 years old and have most likely spread from Southwest Asia and into Europe as early as 4400 B.C- this is thought to be the first lineage.Since both cats and mice were attracted to crops, this is how the first human-cat interaction possibly happened with the cats helping the farmers bring the population of rodents in their territories down.
The second lineage most likely consisted of African cats which spread into the Mediterranean around 1500 B.C. These Egyptian cats which were attractive and had behaviours which appealed to humans like tameness suggest why cats were carried around and in turn helping in their spread to other continents.
By comparing the DNA through this study, scientists have been able to capture a glimpse of how the animals were changing even before humans began to cart them across the globe.
The study also sheds light upon the emergence of blotched or striped coat markings, which began to appear in domesticated tabby cats in the Middle Ages. In reality, wild and domestic cats have no major differences in their genetic makeup but differ only in a few traits that can help tell them apart a major one being the tabby coat marking.
“We’re discovering incredible things about where they’ve come from, how far they’ve gone, and what kind of impact they’ve had on humans. I think studying more about this species is going to open up even more about the domestication process.” Says Dr.Ottoni.
Haters will say am just paranoid, but I warn you hoomans, Cats are Coming!
