There is a sentence that describes the difference between cats and dogs: You provide dogs with food, shelter, and protect them every day. In the eyes of dogs, you must be God, otherwise how can you be so good to yourself. But the cat doesn't think so. It feels that it must be God, otherwise how can humans be so good to themselves?

In the eyes of cats, humans may be just a long-term meal ticket, it will not completely obey humans, but still maintain a relatively high degree of independence.

Like dogs, cats are the most closely related to humans One of the animals, and it accompanies human beings as an emotional companion. In ancient Egypt, people not only kept cats as pets, but even made mummies for cats after they died.

Nowadays, there are more and more cat owners, but have you ever thought about why cats can stay in human society? More importantly, the history of human domestication of cats has reached tens of thousands of years, but have humans really successfully domesticated cats?

Why do cats live with humans?

During the Paleolithic Age, humans began to domesticate various animals and plants. The first animal domesticated was dogs. Their ancestors would search for food near human camps, and humans would not be able to finish them all. Bones were discarded around the camp, so that some individuals with poor hunting skills would linger near humans.

Later humans caught some wolves, which ate the larger ones and left the smaller ones. In the process of getting along with humans, the cubs can provide a vigilant role for humans. Slowly, some less aggressive individuals who were able to provide vigilance stayed behind and were domesticated into dogs by humans.

Compared with dogs, the appearance of cats in the human world does not seem to be the active choice of human beings, but that cats choose to live with humans.

The reason humans tame cats is because humans hoard food The habit of attracting mice, and the cat followed the mice to the camp where humans lived and settled here. Humans discovered this skill of cats and began to get along with cats day and night, and even took cats away when they moved. A 9200-9500-year-old human remains was found in Cyprus, alongside the remains of a cat.

(Cats from about 9,500 years ago)

It may not seem so strange today that cats are buried next to humans, but know that there are no other cats here in Cyprus. felines, which means that humans have been living with cats and brought cats here as early as 9,200 years ago.

Some scientists believe that the reason why humans like cats and take them with them during migration may not be because of their ability to catch mice, but because they are very cute. The researchers believe that cats' innocent big eyes, naive faces, and calls are very similar to human babies, which can stimulate humans' desire for protection, so they stay with humans.

Compared with dogs, cats are more ambitious. By studying stray cats that were released into the wild, researchers found that their hunting skills have not deteriorated, and they can still quickly enter hunting mode and successfully capture many birds, amphibians and small mammals.

A study by the Smithsonian Institute for Conservation Biology and the U.S. Fisheries and Wildlife Service found that in the U.S. alone, domestic and stray cats kill as many birds and mammals each year as possible. At 2.4 billion and 12.3 billion, the number of birds and mammals killed by cats exceeds the sum of non-human causes.

The reason why cats have such a strong predatory ability is actually very surprising. You must know that they have been domesticated by humans for tens of thousands of years, but they have not lost their wildness like dogs. , but still retains excellent hunting ability. Of course, today's pet cats that have been improved by human breeds have lost the ability to survive independently, and they will die soon after leaving humans.

Experts believe that the reason why cats do this may be related to their solitary existence. In fact, cats are an alternative in human domestication. All animals domesticated by humans are gregarious creatures, even dogs are no exception. Only cats are alone, and they rarely interact with other cats except during the mating period. It is also because of its solitary nature that cats can take care of themselves, including hunting ability.

Because of this, some experts say: not humans Cats were domesticated, but cats chose to live with humans.

Today's cat owners

Today's cat owners no longer have the arrogance of previous domestic cats, their hunting ability is almost zero, mainly because humans want to get the appearance Good-looking kittens with pure coat color and sticky personality constantly breed new breeds through backcrossing, crossbreeding and other means, and whether the breed has the ability to survive in the wild is not within their scope of consideration. Under this breeding method, nowadays Many cats have lost their ability to survive in the wild.

For example: although the ragdoll cat is very immortal, its predation ability is much different from that of the pastoral cat; hairless cats cannot survive in the cold environment, and they are equivalent to death if they are separated from humans.

Of course, whether it is a breed cat or a pastoral cat, once you choose to keep them, don't abandon them, otherwise it will be harmful to the cat and the surrounding birds, mammals, etc.