Have you ever looked at a cat and thought, “I wonder what kind of cat this is” or, “I wonder where this cat originated from, well if you have then I will be able to answer those questions for you. I want to educate people on cats and how they act as for, cats are quite complex animals to decipher and understand.
Cats are complex but that doesn’t mean that they are impossible to understand! Now, scientists don’t know everything about the cat in fact, some things are relatively new to discoveries but, I think no matter how much is know about them in my opinion they are pretty interesting creatures. Now, I hope to educate you as much as I can to help you to understand them.
The domestic cat is known for its ability to really adapt to any climate they are put in. Just because they do this doesn’t mean they don’t have a “Country of Origin” you could say. You see, cats have been apart of our house holds for about 4,000 years. The ancient Egyptians were one of the first civilizations to tame and keep cats as pets. The Egyptians were certain cats were a gift from the gods they worshipped and treated them like gods. (Newman,Weitzman)
Cats are able to adapt to most surroundings, though you need to be careful with where you put your feline friend. Cats are able to survive by themselves because the only thing most cats need is food, water and shelter, because of this cats can survive in rural or deserted areas. Cats, like I said previously cats were originally tamed and lived in Egypt. Egypt is a dry, and rural place.
Thanks to cat’s survival instincts, they were able to survive there without the companionship of a human. Cats or at least domestic and feral, are scattered and were scattered all around the globe and all originate from different places. Now, we aren’t sure where cats originally came from but we are speculating that 4,000 years ago Egyptians tamed sand cats and later bred them with different species to create a gentler an tame species of cat that led them to take them and keep them as pets.
Cats had already had the instinct to hunt and thing like that but as the Egyptians started breeding them and other people around the globe started breeding them, cats were able to eventually or most of them for the most part adapt a sense of being able to survive and live in just about every environment. Now, some cats are more susceptible to the cons that come with some of this land such as cats with white fur. An example of that is the cat breed Turkish Angora, these cats have a mix of long fur and short fur causing the ones who have white fur to be open to getting sunburns in harsh conditions. (Online Encyclopedia)
The earliest country recorded that cats came from is recorded to be the island of Cyprus. This is because it was recorded that a man was buried with his cat making that the earliest record of humans loving a feline companion.(Newman,Weitzman) Cats are actually spread out across the world! Here is an example: In Japan there is an island called Aoshima, or better known as Japan’s “Cat Island”, the reason for this is that over 100 cats living there! That right there is an example that cats are spread out and common just about everywhere furthermore proving the point that they most likely originated from different countries other than just one singular one like most other animals in the world.
A good piece of evidence that cats originated from more than one country is all of the different breeds.”There are about 200 breeds of cats in the world”(Online Encyclopedia) and all of them are unique and have their own special abilities that comes with being that certain breed. Here is an example, the cat breed American Curl is a unique breed of cat. What makes them unique is their curled back ears that gives them them their name.
American curls originated here in America whilst other breed like the Bombay cat originated in Thailand. That right there goes to show how country can affect the way a cat is named or just how it acts in general. The country of origin sometimes has an effect on a cat’s behavior. Such as the American shorthair, American Bobtail, American curl, The Maine Coon, The Singapoura and Javanese are just some of the many cats made in America and they all have a tendencies to be friendly but can be aggressive at times.
Cats are a bit different from their relatives. What I mean by this is if you were compare the standard domestic cat to a Marbled cat, you would see some environmental differences for sure.
Let’s use that as our comparison. I’m going to start off with the domestic cat. The domestic cat is in fact able to live and adapt to any environment it is put in.
This is because the domestic cat was originally bred from sand cats in Egypt. The sand cats were able to adapt to the extreme heat or the extreme cold. As the decades went on and cats got bred with loads of different breeds of cat they have been bred to tolerate all environments. Now if you were to compare the Marble cat to the domestic here are their environmental differences. Marbled cats are only able to live in one set environment. (Brittanica.com)
The Marbled cat is only able to live in forest and humid environments. They cannot be in smoldering heat for long or bone chilling temperatures for long at all. This gives them a disadvantage if they are chasing their prey and get taken to a cold place. They would have to stop their pursuit and move on. While a domestic cat all they would do is keep going until they got tired since they can take the cold. Moving on from that it just really gives the domestic cat an advantage to live in a good place with food but if something happens to that home they can easily find another.
“Even when prey is scarce and it’s cold, cats can still navigate their prey easily from miles away.” (Erin Hunter’s Warrior cats Path of Stars) Now, domestic cat’s sizes also help them a great deal. Domestic cats are relatively smaller than most big cats so that gives them the advantage of being able to pursue their prey easier. It also means that there is less of a threat of overheat since the cat doesn’t have to use as much energy as the normal sized cheetah or something of the sorts.
Cats do not hibernate. Cats do in fact sleep quite a lot. Cats sleep a total total of 3 years of its life if you did the proper math. Instead of hibernation cats sleep on a regular basis and get the most sleep in the daytime hours and play the most at night. So, if you wake up at 4:00 and hear questionable noises coming from somewhere in your house, it is probably your cat, if not there might be a problem buster.
My cat Cinnamon does this kind of thing. She sleeps all day but when night comes her and Blackie will literally chase each other down the hallway at 4:00 and lemme tell ya, on top of my dog Rocky barking all night that just adds to the ruckus but, you get used to it. Anyway, cats don’t hibernate because they crave to hunt and need regular amounts of exercise a day so make sure you at least play with your cat because they are going to need to be in shape for the evenings play time! The most you cat will ever be close to “hibernation” Is if they decide it’s a good idea to sleep in the exact same spot for the actual entire day which, all six of my cats have done a multitude of times and when they do they sleep in the oddest places.
Blackie sleeps in my bar stool, Cinni sleeps under, or on my mom’s bed or my bed, Bootsie sleeps in on the four wheeler or on the ceiling boards in the garage along with Bell and Little Smokey and Chester snuggle in Chester’s bed or in Rockey’s bed with him.
Yes. Here is an example on how dedicated they are even in some odd circumstances. You see my old cat Stormy had Blackie, Little Smokey and Bootsie, sure she cared for them as kittens but when they were old enough to care for themselves she did not want a lot to do with them. And that kind of thing is quite common among cats. Most of the time though it is more like this: A cat will have kittens and become quite attached to them and care for them as long as they can.
By the time a kitten is old enough, their mother or father or even if they have one, an older sibling will teach it how to hunt properly as well as how to communicate with other cats and the baseses like that. If a cat grows up without it’s mother or parent it is most likely to learn from a sibling if you got them with one, such as my cat Chester, and if they don’t have that either they will learn from other cats. This is very important so that the cat knows when danger is present and when it’s not.
Most of the time a cat will learn in some way but if not it is hard but indeed possible to teach them yourself if it is absolutely necessary to your cats benefits because they won’t have all the right skills but their instincts will kick in. Though, this can make a cat moody so if this is the case try to make sure your cat has the best care and if this continues in your case, or you can talk to your veterinarian for advise on this as for this is a lot more common among feral cats weather than demystified cats. (Newman,Weitzman)
