Cats are one of the most fascinating animals around. They’re adored for their beauty, behaviour quirks (like headbutting) and their obsession with knocking things off tables. But there’s much more to cats than meets the eye.
Here are some cat facts to wow your friends:
Cat genes have been traced back to the civetlike predator Proailurus, which evolved 30 million years ago. The earliest cats were probably small civetlike mammals that specialised in hunting small birds and rodents. Cats have also made their way into world religions and literature. For example, the cat is mentioned in the Bible and has played a significant role in a number of myths and legends from different cultures and regions.
A cat’s brain has 300 million neurons, compared with the 160 million of a dog. This enables them to learn much more quickly, although they’re less good at remembering things. The cat’s purr vibrates at 25 to 150 hertz, which is a frequency that helps bones and muscles repair themselves.
Cats’ ability to breed throughout the year means they can rapidly overtake populations of prey species. They’ve been responsible for the extinction of 33 different species. It’s thought that modern domestic cats descend from the African wildcat Felis silvestris libyca, which started to become more domestic when it began living near human settlements in the Fertile Crescent – perhaps because it could hunt mice and other rodents better than wildcats. As a result, humans may have encouraged this behaviour by giving it low-effort food sources and shelter.