Feline Origins

This week the staff had training on understanding feline origins and behaviour. The training was very interesting so we have decided to share what we learned with our regular blog followers. The First topic we covered was all about the African Wildcat.

The African Wildcat

Solitary

Today's domestic cat descend from the African Wildcat, this species is still found today. The African Wildcat lives in the Savannah in the Middle East. They are solitary hunters who prey on small rodents. They like to maintain a territory to ensure others cats are kept away from their resources.

Hunters

Hunting attempts are frequent but not always successful, this hunting behaviour is exhibited before hunger to ensure sufficient food is caught. They catch approximately 10-12 small rodents each day and an average a mouse contains 30 calories. They are crepuscular meaning that they are most active during dawn and dusk, this is when their prey is most active. The African Wildcat is also a obligate carnivore which means they must eat meat. 

Communication

As they are solitary animals there was no evolutionary pressure for them to develop facial expressions for communication within a social group. They rely on scent profiles for distant communication over prolonged periods, such as rubbing, spraying and scratching. This means they can leave communication signals without having to come into contact with other cats.

Avoiding stress and conflict

They lack social signals to avoid conflict so they rely on the use of scent profiles. They are a small predator so they prefer to run, climb or hide, rather than fight. 

Sleeping

They favour high locations in their core territory. They need a lot of sleep due to the amount of energy they expend during hunting.They also like to rotate sleeping areas for parasite control and they often stretch and scratch when they wake up to maintain their claws.

Toileting

They use a safe area at the edge of their core territory as this is a vulnerable activity. They prefer a sandy, soft substrate that they can dig and this preference is developed as a kitten. They will also toilet away from sites of eating and drinking to avoid contamination.

Water

They prefer a moving water source to a stagnant pool. As they are desert animals they evolved efficient kidneys so they don't need to drink a large amount of water. Their prey also contains a large amount of water.   

Reproduction

Breeding season is correlated when the prey is most abundant during the wet season. A female will call when she is in season and a male will travel a long distance to find her. The kittens need to learn quickly so the socialisation period is between 2-8 week of age. The kittens will learn what is normal in their environment. They will eventually find their own territory and resources once they are old enough. 

Disease

They have little contact with other cats so so the opportunity for infectious diseases to spread is reduced. Infectious organisms have evolved to create a carrier status in cats instead. This makes the transmission to another cat more likely over time. The African Wildcat also has lack of shelter, no guaranteed food source, no veterinary treatment and predation increase their risk of mortality. It really is survival of the fittest.

Domestication

The earliest evidence of cats cohabiting with man comes from a 9,500 year old grave in Cyprus. A man and a cat were found buried together. Previously in Egyptian culture just before 2,000 B.C. cats were idolised in artwork and also mummified. This is the earliest clear evidence of cats in human culture.

Domestication probably began with farmers in the Middle East. Farming and storing grain attracted a large number of rodents. African Wildcats altered their hunting habits to take advantage of this abundance of prey. This meant that they had to build up a greater tolerance living in close proximity to man. Along side this the cats also had to develop and increased tolerance of one another as they were now living at a higher density. This resulted in there being two Wildcat populations. Those that were tolerant of living near humans and those more fearful continued to live out on the sparse savannah. This was the start of the domestic cat population we now have around the world today.