Geneticists told where, how and when people domesticated cats

Miscellaneous / by admin / April 05, 2023

Thousands of years later, these animals are still able to live without humans, on their own.

A genetic study of cats around the world has helped confirm the story of how people who lived in ancient Mesopotamia domesticated cats around 10,000 years ago. About it says in a new scientific work of scientists from the University of Missouri, USA.

It was a very interesting time in human history when people first began to move from a mobile lifestyle of hunter-gatherers to settlements based on sustainable agriculture. This revolutionary shift first occurred among the people who settled in fertile crescent (Fertile Crescent) in the region of the Tigris and Euphrates rivers, which created ideal conditions for settled agriculture.

Growing crops allowed humans to accumulate surplus food that constantly attracted mice and rats. Cats, in turn, were attracted to human settlements, where they could hunt rodents. Fascinated by their aloof appeal, humans began to domesticate the animals and take them with them on their many migrations.

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In a new study, scientists from the United States once again confirmed this version by analyzing 200 different genetic markers of cats in and around the Fertile Crescent and in Europe, Asia and Africa.

The genetic study also showed that cats currently living in Western Europe, for example, will have some significant genetic differences from cats on the other side of the globe, such as in the Southeast Asia.

However, to say that cats are "domesticated" is a bit of a misnomer, the scientists added. Any cat owner can attest that this animal disobeys orders like a dog. In addition, cats are much less genetically different from their wild ancestors than dogs are from wolves. Thus, these animals have always been and remain "wilder" than dogs.

In fact, we can call cats semi-domesticated, because if we released them into the wild, they would probably would still hunt rodents and could survive and mate on their own due to their natural behavior.

Leslie A. Lyons

study author and feline geneticist

The scientists claim that their study not only confirms the main theory of domestication, but also can help stop the migration and transmission of hereditary genetic diseases in cats around the world the world. For example, in this way it was possible to stop the development of polycystic kidney disease. Previously, 38% of Persian cats suffered from this disease. Now this percentage has dropped significantly thanks to the efforts of scientists. Now the overall goal is to eradicate genetic problems in cats in the future, summed up the authors of the work.