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The Cat

The cat is a small carnivorous mammal that is the only domesticated species in the Felidae family. Cats can be house pets, farm cats, or feral cats that avoid human contact. House cats are valued as companions and for their ability to hunt rodents. There are about 60 recognized cat breeds. Cats are predators that are most active at dawn and dusk and have senses adapted for hunting small prey like hearing sounds too faint for humans and better smell but poorer color vision. Females can have litters of 2-5 kittens in spring through late autumn. Failure to spay and neuter pet cats as well as abandoning pets has led to large feral cat populations worldwide contributing to bird

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36 views1 page

The Cat

The cat is a small carnivorous mammal that is the only domesticated species in the Felidae family. Cats can be house pets, farm cats, or feral cats that avoid human contact. House cats are valued as companions and for their ability to hunt rodents. There are about 60 recognized cat breeds. Cats are predators that are most active at dawn and dusk and have senses adapted for hunting small prey like hearing sounds too faint for humans and better smell but poorer color vision. Females can have litters of 2-5 kittens in spring through late autumn. Failure to spay and neuter pet cats as well as abandoning pets has led to large feral cat populations worldwide contributing to bird

Uploaded by

Anonymous WE4HG7
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© © All Rights Reserved
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The cat (Felis catus) is a small carnivorous mammal.

[1][2] It is the only domesticated species in


the family Felidae and often referred to as the domestic cat to distinguish it from wild
members of the family.[4] The cat is either a house cat or a farm cat, which are pets, or a feral
cat, which ranges freely and avoids human contact.[5] A house cat is valued by humans for
companionship and for its ability to hunt rodents. About 60 cat breeds are recognized by
various cat registries.[6]
Cats are similar in anatomy to the other felid species, with a strong flexible body, quick
reflexes, sharp teeth and retractable claws adapted to killing small prey. They
are predators who are most active at dawn and dusk (crepuscular). Cats can hear sounds too
faint or too high in frequency for human ears, such as those made by mice and other small
animals. Compared to humans, they see better in the dark (they see in near total darkness)
and have a better sense of smell, but poorer color vision. Cats, despite being solitary hunters,
are a social species. Cat communication includes the use
of vocalizations including meowing, purring, trilling, hissing, growling and grunting as well
as cat-specific body language.[7] Cats also communicate by secreting and
perceiving pheromones.[8]
Female domestic cats can have kittens from spring to late autumn, with litter sizes ranging from
two to five kittens.[9] Domestic cats can be bred and shown as registered pedigreed cats, a
hobby known as cat fancy. Failure to control the breeding of pet cats by spaying and neutering,
as well as abandonment of pets, has resulted in large numbers of feral cats worldwide,
contributing to the extinction of entire bird species, and evoking population control.[10]
It was long thought that cat domestication was initiated in Egypt, because cats in ancient
Egypt were venerated since around 3100 BC.[11][12] However, the earliest indication for
the taming of an African wildcat (F. lybica) was found in Cyprus, where a cat skeleton
was excavated close by a human Neolithic grave dating to around 7500 BC.[13] African wildcats
were probably first domesticated in the Near East.[14] The leopard cat (Prionailurus bengalensis)
was tamed independently in China around 5500 BC, though this line of partially domesticated
cats leaves no trace in the domestic cat populations of today.[15][16]
As of 2017, the domestic cat was the second-most popular pet in the U.S. by number of pets
owned, after freshwater fish,[17] with 95 million cats owned.[18][19] In the United Kingdom, around
7.3 million cats lived in more than 4.8 million households as of 2019.[20] In 1965, the country's
cat population was 4.1 million.[21]

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