They serve as Icons for sports teams and multinational corporations, they live in lands of snow and ice, on mountain tops, and deep in lush, steamy, jungles. They can see in the dark, their ears are sensitive to a range of frequency fully three times broader than ours and sounds ten times as faint. They can run at 70 miles per hour across uneven ground and turn on a dime. They possess the strength, balance, and raw power any human athlete/gymnast would kill for. And, if they happen to lock in on you while you're unarmed, helplessly alone in the twilight wilderness, their preternatural eyes gleaming, their toothy maws yawning in ghoulish anticipation of easy prey, you might as well cut your throat; before they do it for you.
More recently one version has ensconced themselves firmly into our domiciles, ensuring their evolutionary success for the next eon or two, whilst retaining more than any other domestic creature their feral, independent nature, enlisting humans not as owners, but as
staff.
How did this diverse group of profoundly graceful predators arise and what makes them so successful?
Warning: Large Graphics Below
Felus Catus is your taxonomic nomenclature.
An endothermic quadruped, carnivorous by nature.
Your visual, olfactory, and auditory senses
Contribute to your hunting skills and natural defenses.
I find myself intrigued by your sub vocal oscillations.
A singular development of cat communications.
That obviates your basic hedonistic predilection
For a rhythmic stroking of your fur to demonstrate affection.
A tail is quite essential for your acrobatic talents.
You would not be so agile if you lacked its counterbalance.
And when not being utilized to aid in locomotion,
It often serves to illustrate the state of your emotions.
Oh Spot, the complex levels of behavior you display
Connote a fairly well developed cognitive array.
And though you are not sentient, Spot, and do not comprehend,
I none the less consider you a true and valued friend.
Ode to Spot by Lt. Commander Data
Cats are mammals of course and members of the family Felidea. Cat species make up one of nine groups in the order Carnivora, which includes canids (Dogs, wolves, foxes), raccoons, and bears, as well as weasels, otters, skunks, and pinnepeds (Walruses, sea lions, seals). Carnivora arose from the hardy stock of critters such as basal Cynodonts, reptile-like mammals which predate the first dinosaur and have been around for a whopping 250 million years.
Cynodont
Genetic analysis of cat DNA indicates the order carnivora split from the precursors of primates like ourselves about 80-100 million years ago in the middle Cretaceous Period, and both primates and carnivora split from insectivores; something like Cimolestes although the details are murky, perhaps as early as 150 MYA in the late Jurrassic Period. Long before the dinosaurs were exterminated, the ancestors of cats and people lived side by side in a strange evolutionary parallel of today. Both types of early mammals probably shared many a meal and competed for prey with one another in the nocturnal undergrowth of the ancient rain forests and woodlands dominated by ferns and pines, furtively scanning for raptorial predators of both the avian and terrestrial kind.
But like all mammals, the Day of the Cat would not begin to dawn until after the saurian overlords of a now bygone world had left the evolutionary scene in the hands of their more adaptive mammalian underlings.
In the late Paleocene, about 55 million years ago, the first recognizable candidate for a cat (And dog) ancestor appears: The Miacids. These sleek carnivores, most about the size of a bobcat, radiated into an array of predatory eco-niches left by the vanquished giants in a few million years. Miacids likely hunted smaller prey in the rain forest canopies and dim floors of the Eocene jungles roughly 50 MYA.
Artist's rendition of an early Miacid
Over the next twenty million years, the miacids diverged into the forerunners of modern cats and dogs, and by twenty million years ago the first true cats appear in the fossil record such as this Proailurus.
.
Without a doubt the most famous prehistoric cat is the Saber toothed "Tiger"; which is not a tiger at all in the formal sense and describes a huge array of cats and protocats rather than a single species. The most commonly portrayed genus, known as Smilodon, boasts a South American species, S. populator, that is among the largest and undoubtedly one of the most dangerous felines to ever silently pad across the earth.
Enlarge Saber tooth next to a quarter The Saber Toothed Smilodon
Cats appear capable of evolving quickly. Modern Great Cats are relatively new, reflecting the pace of feline plasticity. Tigers and Lions emerged so recently from a common ancestor that they're still able to mate and occasionally even produce fertile offspring called Tigons or Ligers. Cheetahs apparently went through a genetic bottle neck at the end of the last ice age so severe only a few families survived. The animals are now all so closely related that tissue grafts from one to another take as though they're identical twins.
The reason cats are so successful today and thus so widespread, is the same reason they're so much fun to watch: They're amazingly agile, creatures, endowed with a big, socially adept, brain, and well-armed with an array of weaponry, which possess an astonishing repertoire of evolutionary plasticity allowing them to occupy and dominate virtually every predatory niche on land. They come in large and small, live everywhere from jungle floors and canopies to alpine mountain tops, and they can get along in large packs, small harems and family groups, and as lone ambush hunters.
Cats have spines in which the vertebrae articulate in such a manner as to provide an enormous range of motion compared to most vertebrates and these back bones are sandwiched between fat, intervetebral disks able to withstand substantial violent force. Each padded foot is a springy 'fivepod' of toes, the end point of a complex, triple jointed shock absorbing system which can take falls and g-forces that leave a human broken and mangled. The feet, legs, and trunk may be riddled with what are essentially tiny three-dimensional accelerometers which act like a host of fully independent inner ears, sending dozens if not hundreds of separate signals to a brain which processes the data like a super computer and solves horridly complex, partial differential equations, routing that solution to all parts of the body and spine. The result is the cat can execute a flawless a double twisting double flip, contorting and even corkscrewing its spine almost forty-five degrees in any plane and controlling the angular momenta with its tail, feet, and head, all in less than a second, and land on it's feet ... to bat its tail in anger and race away unhurt, even it was thrown head over heels into the air for ten feet or more.
They can pad silently over dead leaves, freeze motionless for long periods of time, stare unblinkingly, barely breathing, and then flash out in a burst of blinding speed to strike without, so far as we can tell, being out of breath.
The fore claws are naturally retracted when not in use and are extended by a stout tendon actuated by a powerful muscle which runs the length of the ulna and anchors securely just below the elbow/knee. The claws themselves are made of bony protein, superhardened with mineral matrices almost to the point of a synthetic glass, which flakes off in natural conical layers leaving the claws with a permanent, needle sharp point and a microscopically serrated cutting edge. With these weapons the cat first strikes and pierces the flesh, and then cuts a long laceration upon withdrawal. And larger cats such as a tiger or lion can do it with the force of a swinging sledgehammer, all focused on those tiny, sharp, edges, in the blink of an eye.
Starting at the top right and going clockwise, the claw of a Siberian Tiger, African Lion, Cougar, Jaguar, Cheetah, another Cheetah, Leopard, Lynx, .. and a Bobcat
The felid jaw is short and robust, giving all cats that characteristic cropped muzzle look. This architecture provides leverage and thus lends the animal a powerful bite akin to that of an english bulldog. If the cat wants to hang on, it can support several times it's own weight with its entire dental arcade sunk firmly into flailing victims, crushing muscle and in some larger species even heavy bone, the long, upper and lower canines are usually quite slender allowing then to penetrate deep into the prey, reaching vulnerable blood vessels and arteries. It can even reposition it's bite with lightning speed, in mid-flail, searching for new vessels and organs with each attempt to deliver the knock out injury. They usually make straight for the neck or spine, all the while ripping into the hapless prey with all four clawed feet to gain a solid purchase and drive those killer teeth in deeper.
Between the teeth, jaw power, claws, brain, speed, eyes, ears, nose, stalking/ambushing skills, and agility, cats are probably the most precision made killing machines walking the earth today. Not since the days of velociraptor has such elegance, power, and coordination, all teamed up in one large animal. It's no wonder warriors from Babylonian swordsmen to disciples of Shaolin kung-fu, have studied cats hoping to mimic just a portion of their gracefully lethal skills.
And, they have become our friends; among the best of our companions. The traditional story is that small Libyan Wild cats were first tamed in north Africa, enlisted as trusted domestic allies keeping down rodents and other pests in ancient horticultural civilizations on the banks of the Nile. But the reality today may be less complimentary to our allegedly superior human management and negotiating skills: Sleeping where and when they wish, playing or hunting at their convenience, disappearing for days on end only to turn up demanding food, water, and love, we slave away in factories and offices while they loll around in abject leisure. It's arguable cats have domesticated us more than vice-versa!
Watch the cat, even the fluff-ball of a kitten. Compared to a dog or a horse, he or she has given up almost nothing in terms of independence and feral abilities. Lurking just beneath the surface of that playful pussy is a serial killer. Their ancestral predatory intensity is easily seen with a ball of yarn standing in for a mouse, or the poor lizard who gets cornered and tormented to jazz up an otherwise boring day between naps; all in a day's work for the common feline. When some asshole takes a kitten and throws him out of a car on the side of a rural road, odds are decent the poor thing will survive for months, maybe years, by its wits and prowess. Most dogs would be dead in a matter of days or weeks without the benefit of human resources (Hell my sheltie puppy is afraid of june bugs and cowers in fear from them on the other side of a window).
They are truly fascinating animals and I'm glad we have made an arrangement with at least some of them. And I'm hopeful we'll preserve those magnificent great cats in the wild which are still left. Sadly for us and for them, many are barely managing to maintain viable population numbers as humans continue to encroach on their range, and they are dangerous to have roaming around your backyard. Let's meet a few of those ...
Felis ocreata or Libyan Wild Cat. Likely ancestor of the hundreds of modern breeds of housecat, first domesticated in ancient Egypt
Black leopard with cub. Contrary to popular belief, there is no single species of great cat called a Black Panther. Pictures of such are almost always unusually dark leopards or unusually dark Jaguars
Florida Panther; beautiful, powerful, and on the brink of extinction.
Siberian Tiger Cubs Lions, leopards, and tigers, oh my!
A Cheetah blazing along at 50 MPH executes an abrupt, forty-five degree turn on rough, open savanna, without missing a beat. Extraordinary evolutionary adaptations such as a spine which virtually dislocates with each five meter stride and a small streamlined head allows Cheetahs to hold the land speed record at 70 plus MPH.
A gorgeous Snow Leopard, now hunted for their skins, they now number only few thousand.
And what kind of Friday Cat Blogging would be replete without a goofy picture of our own cat? ... But alas our cat Nikki, Absolute Lord and Life-time Ruler of DarkSyde Manor does not denigrate herself with goofiness. She regally declined an online interview or an invitation to be immortalized in film. However, in the interests of maintaining domestic non-human harmony in the Manor, and given this post has been almost exclusively about cats, I did allow our aforementioned, cowardly but lovable puppy-dog, "Darwin", to ham it up for the digital camera instead, and have his say, below, which consisted of "Bacon?".
Darwin adds, "Have a wonderful weekend all!"