Cat Knowledge dives into the fascinating world of feline history, behavior, anatomy, and physiology. This section provides insights to help you better understand your cat’s instincts, health, and unique traits.
With the beginning of the great voyages of discovery and colonization that set out from Europe from the 15th century onward, domestic cats crossed the Atlantic for the first time. Taken on board sailing ships to control infestations of rodents, they had ample time on the long sea passages to the Americas to produce kittens. … Read more
Cats are world citizens and have come a long way from their roots in North Africa and the eastern Mediterranean. While cats do not respect boundaries, and some early house cats probably moved independently, they have mostly traveled where humans have taken them. Even in areas where their wild counterparts have never occurred— such as … Read more
The story of the cat’s domestication is one of mutual appreciation, not servitude: early farming communities benefited from cats’ rodent-catching skills, while cats won themselves protection and shelter without losing their independence. Our relationship with cats reaches back thousands of years, although compared to the domestication of other animals, that of the cat was a … Read more
Since the time of the primitive cat-ancestor Cimolestes in the late Cretaceous, saber-toothed carnivores have arisen on three occasions in three different carnivore groups. The earliest were the creodonts, followed by the nimravids, and finally the saber-toothed cats, including Smilodon. None of these are considered to be directly ancestral to the cats living today. Saber-toothed … Read more
The heart and the blood vessels form the cardiovascular system. The cat’s heart is a four-chambered pump, about the size of a walnut, made of special non-tiring cardiac muscle. It beats between 140 and 220 times each minute, depending on the level of activity, and its resting heartbeat of 140–180 beats per minute is about … Read more
When I was six, I met my first real cat—a scruffy orange tabby named Oliver who lived under our neighbor’s porch. He was grumpy, fluffy, and had the confidence of a king. One summer evening, he walked right up, sat in my lap, and started purring like a tiny motorcycle. That moment changed everything for … Read more
One of the earliest ancestors of our modern cats is considered to be a meat-eating mammal named Proailurus (meaning “before cats”), which appeared in what is now Eurasia during the Oligocene epoch 34–23 million years ago. Little is known about Proailurus, but fossil remains show that it was not much larger than a domestic cat … Read more
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 much interest, and people began to see the taken-for-granted farmyard … Read more
With their lithe bodies and graceful movements, it is perhaps surprising that cats have not been represented more often in either classical or contemporary ballet. Two of the few cats in the ballet repertoire appear in the final act of Tchaikovsky’s The Sleeping Beauty (first performed in 1890) when, among other fairy-tale characters, Puss in … Read more
A 21st-century phenomenon is the proliferation of cat photos and videos on the internet. What began as a craze for posting clips of bizarre and amusing cats has, for a few, turned into big business, especially in the United States. Certain videos went viral, and cats with particularly striking features—as well as one with a … Read more