Cats are as unlikely to be given leading roles on stage than they are in films. But the cats brought spectacularly to life by actors in Andrew Lloyd Webber’s award-winning musical Cats have enchanted theater goers since the show opened in London in 1981. Based …
By the middle of the 19th century, domestic cats could be found on almost every sizeable landmass in the world and had diversified into distinct types. In Europe and the United States, the import of exotic-looking cats such as the Siamese and Turkish Angora stimulated …
The ancient region known as the Fertile Crescent, which sweeps in an arc from the Nile to the Persian Gulf, was where the domestication of cats is believed to have originated. This region also corresponds to part of the natural range of the African wildcat, …
Elegant, powerful, and elusive, wildcats can be large and may roar like a lion, or small and purr like a domestic cat. They are superb hunters, adapted to be as successful living in a dry sandy desert as they are in a dense tropical forest. …
Out of all the big cat species, only the cheetah has proved possible to domesticate to any extent. Both the ancient Egyptians and the Assyrians kept tame cheetahs and used them for hunting, as centuries later did the Mogul emperors in India. These beautiful animals …
The puma is one of three cat species in the puma lineage, the other two being the jaguarundi from South America and the cheetah from Africa and Asia. It is able to survive in remarkably diverse environmental conditions, being found over a wide geographical area …
Cats probably first put a paw into domestic life when humans made the switch from being hunter-gatherers to being farmers. Growing crops meant storing grain, and granaries attracted swarms of rodents ready to feast on this new bonanza of food. In turn, this provided an …
The origins of today’s domestic cat extend back some 10 million years to wildcat ancestors. Feline evolution proves complex, however, with domestication taking place in multiple early societies. Tracing genetic and archaeological clues shed light on the nature of our modern felines’ early progenitors. Exploring …
For the most part, cats have been sidelined in adult literature, making appearances as major players largely in books for children. Some literary cats are more realistic than others, but even the most fantastic usually have qualities that are instantly recognizable as feline. Often, the …
There are about 500 muscles attached to a cat’s flexible skeleton. They allow the cat to use various gaits (patterns of locomotion) and to make an amazing range of graceful movements, suitable for an athletic hunter of small rodents and birds. The cat’s muscles are …