What do all cats originate from?
House cats descended from the African wild cat. The African wild cat shares a common ancestor with all other cats, including the lion, tiger, sabre tooth cats, leopard, jaguar, and cheetah. They are all considered cats (family Felidae). The cats share a common ancestor in turn with cat-like carnivores (the feliforms), such as the hyena and the mongoose. The cats and cat-like carnivores differ from the dogs and dog-like carnivores (such as bears, weasels, otters, and bears) in the structure of their ears. “All extant feliforms share a common attribute: their auditory bullae (bony capsules enclosing the middle and inner ear). This is a key diagnostic in classifying species as feliform versus caniform. In feliforms the auditory bullae are double-chambered, composed of two bones joined by a septum. Caniforms have single-chambered or partially divided auditory bullae, composed of a single bone.” The common ancestor of the feliform carnivores have not been identified in the fossil record.
Domestic cats originated from an ancestral wild species, Felis silvestris, the European and African Wild Cat. The domestic cat is now considered a separate species, named Felis catus. In appearance, domestic cats are similar to their wild relatives, and many of their behaviors, such as hunting and other activity patterns, remain essentially unchanged from their ancestral form. Cats were first domesticated in Egypt around 2000 BC. Domestic cats spread slowly to other parts of the globe, possibly because Egyptians prevented export of the animal they worshiped as a goddess. However, by 500 BC the Greeks had acquired domestic cats, and they spread cats throughout their sphere of influence. The Romans introduced the domestic cat to Britain by 300 AD. Domestic cats have now been introduced around the world, mostly by colonists from Europe.
