Modern Day Cats

Modern day cats are considered lazy and purposeless creatures by much of the population and not without reason as they spend on average 62% of their day or 15 hours sleeping (Reference) . So how were cats domesticated and for what purposes? The origin of cats and when their domestication came to be is a much discussed and argued topic that seems to change as science advances and more ways to analyse skeletal remains are developed. Whether cats were self domesticated or by the hand of the human specie the reason why they still are today compared to what their initial purpose was is a development of human needs and habits. "It 's plausible that the ancient [domestic cat] lineages were present in the wildcat populations back as far as 70,000 or 100,000 years ago," said study co-author Stephen O 'Brien of the National Cancer Institute in Frederick, Maryland. June 28, 2007

The domestication of cats is a very discussed topic that many disagree on. Some say cats were domesticated for religious purposes in Egypt but many others believe that even today cats are only semi-domesticated and could adapt to surviving in the wild if need be. They self-domesticated for comfort. It is still hard to differentiate a domesticated cat from a wild cat, physically it is close to impossible as the only differences are rumored to be shorter fur and a smaller average size. The main difference is found in certain genes such as memory, conditioning attributing fear as a major factor and stimulus which refer to the reward learning psychology through food mostly. Because of their ability to survive so well and reproduce in large numbers, cats have become nuisances in areas of human populations. Each year, hundreds of thousands of unwanted or abandoned cats are euthanised here in the United States alone. Because humans are also irresponsible in their keeping of pets and do not spay and neuter, the number of unwanted kittens is astronomical, adding to the numbers of euthanized animals each