Cat

The cat (''Felis catus'') is a domestic species of small carnivorous mammal. It is the only domesticated species in the family Felidae and is commonly referred to as the domestic cat or house cat to distinguish it from the wild members of the family. Cats are commonly kept as house pets but can also be farm cats or feral cats; the feral cat ranges freely and avoids human contact. Domestic cats are valued by humans for companionship and their ability to kill rodents. About 60 cat breeds are recognized by various cat registries.

The cat is similar in anatomy to the other felid species: they have a strong flexible body, quick reflexes, sharp teeth, and retractable claws adapted to killing small prey. Their night vision and sense of smell are well developed. Cat communication includes vocalizations like meowing, purring, trilling, hissing, growling, and grunting as well as cat-specific body language. Although the cat is a social species, they are a solitary hunter. As a predator, they are crepuscular, i.e. most active at dawn and dusk. They can hear sounds too faint or too high in frequency for human ears, such as those made by mice and other small mammals. They also secretes and perceive pheromones.

Female domestic cats can have kittens from spring to late autumn, with litter sizes often ranging from two to five kittens. Domestic cats are bred and shown at events as registered pedigreed cats, a hobby known as cat fancy. Population control of cats may be affected by spaying and neutering, but their proliferation and the abandonment of pets has resulted in large numbers of feral cats worldwide, contributing to the extinction of entire bird, mammal, and reptile species.

It was long thought that cat domestication began in ancient Egypt, where cats were venerated from around 3100 BC, but recent advances in archaeology and genetics have shown that their domestication occurred in Western Asia around 7500 BC.

there were an estimated 220 million owned and 480 million stray cats in the world. the domestic cat was the second most popular pet in the United States, with 95.6 million cats owned and around 42 million households owning at least one cat. In the United Kingdom, 26% of adults have a cat, with an estimated population of 10.9 million pet cats

Etymology and naming

The origin of the English word ''cat'', Old English , is thought to be the Late Latin word , which was first used at the beginning of the 6th century. It was suggested that is derived from an Egyptian precursor of Coptic , "tomcat", or its feminine form suffixed with . The Late Latin word may be derived from another Afro-Asiatic or Nilo-Saharan language. The Nubian word "wildcat" and Nobiin are possible sources or cognates. The Nubian word may be a loan from Arabic ~ .

However, it is "equally likely that the forms might derive from an ancient Germanic word, imported into Latin and thence to Greek and to Syriac and Arabic". The word may be derived from Germanic and Northern European languages, and ultimately be borrowed from Uralic, cf. Northern Sami , "female stoat", and Hungarian , "lady, female stoat"; from Proto-Uralic ''*käďwä'', "female (of a furred animal)".

The English '' puss'', extended as ''pussy'' and ''pussycat'', is attested from the 16th century and may have been introduced from Dutch or from Low German , related to Swedish , or Norwegian , . Similar forms exist in Lithuanian and Irish or . The etymology of this word is unknown, but it may have arisen from a sound used to attract a cat.

A male cat is called a ''tom'' or ''tomcat'' (or a ''gib'', if neutered). An unspayed female is called a ''queen'' (or a ''molly'', if spayed), especially in a cat-breeding context. A juvenile cat is referred to as a ''kitten''. In Early Modern English, the word ''kitten'' was interchangeable with the now-obsolete word ''catling''. A group of cats can be referred to as a ''clowder'' or a ''glaring''.

Taxonomy

The scientific name ''Felis catus'' was proposed by Carl Linnaeus in 1758 for a domestic cat. ''Felis catus domesticus'' was proposed by Johann Christian Polycarp Erxleben in 1777. ''Felis daemon'' proposed by Konstantin Alekseevich Satunin in 1904 was a black cat from the Transcaucasus, later identified as a domestic cat.

In 2003, the International Commission on Zoological Nomenclature ruled that the domestic cat is a distinct species, namely ''Felis catus''.
In 2007, it was considered a subspecies, ''F. silvestris catus'', of the European wildcat (''F. silvestris'') following results of phylogenetic research. In 2017, the IUCN Cat Classification Taskforce followed the recommendation of the ICZN in regarding the domestic cat as a distinct species, ''Felis catus''.

Evolution

The domestic cat is a member of the Felidae, a family that had a common ancestor about 10–15 million years ago.
The genus ''Felis'' diverged from other Felidae around 6–7 million years ago. Results of phylogenetic research confirm that the wild ''Felis'' species evolved through sympatric or parapatric speciation, whereas the domestic cat evolved through artificial selection