Those small furry carnivores who chase mice really ought to be classified into two distinct species. House cats have taken up with humans and get food and shelter from the humans, and alley cats who live out of doors. Anyone can see that the house cats are doing better than the alley cats. House cats are well fed, fur is nice and clean, they stay indoors, warm and dry during bad weather. Alley cats are skinny and ill fed, their coats are in terrible condition, and they have to survive out of doors in snow storms.
We used to think that house cats adopted their first humans back in ancient Egyptian times, say 5 to 6 thousand years ago. Lately a grave was excavated on Cyprus with a cat buried along with its human. This site was dated to 9000 years ago. But either date is not all that long ago, compared to dogs who have been domesticated for 50,000 years.
House cats, in addition to having the right attitude about people, have a couple of things that endear them to us humans. First of all, purring. We find a purring cat, sitting in our laps, creates a wonderful feeling of peace and warmth. And cats have the finest, silkiest coats of any common animal. It is a pleasure to stroke a cat, far more so than to stroke a dog which has a much coarser coat. Just how cats managed to evolve both purring and their silky coats, thousands of years before they adopted their first human, is a mystery that evolutionary theory fails to explain.
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