Cats' Interpretation on World History

Only 118 of the 2,200 crew members of the German battleship Bismarck survived the ferocious fighting that caused it to sink on May 27th, 1941. A black and white cat, however, was an unexpected survivor when a British destroyer arrived to collect the prisoners. The cat was clinging to a floating plank. This cat pursued rodents for several months, boosting British spirits, until an unexpected torpedo attack broke the ship's hull and caused it to sink. Fortunately, though, not the cat.

Unsinkable Sam, as he was affectionately known, traveled to Gibraltar with the crew who had been saved and then worked as a ship cat on three more ships, one of which also sank, before relocating to the Belfast Home for Sailors. Many people would not consider cats to be reliable navigators or helpful companions of any type. However, cats have coexisted with humans for countless years, aiding us just as frequently as we aid them. How did these lone creatures transition from being a wild predator to a naval officer to a couch buddy? At the beginning of the Neolithic era, more than 10,000 years ago, in the Fertile Crescent, the contemporary house cat was first domesticated.

As people learned to control nature, farmers were able to produce considerably more food than they could consume at once. Large pits and short clay silos were used by these Neolithic farmers to store their extra grain. However, these food reserves attracted swarms of rodents and their predator, the wildcat widespread throughout North Africa and Southwest Asia, Felis Silvestris lybica. These cougars were carnivores, were swift, and were hunters. They remarkably resembled domestic cats of the present day in terms of size and look.

The key variations were that ancient wildcats had striped coats, were less sociable with other cats and people, and were more muscular. These normally solitary animals were drawn to the quantity of prey in rodent-infested granaries. We believe that farmers tolerated the cats in a similar way that the wildcats learned to tolerate people and other cats around them during mealtimes because it provided them with free pest control. The two species got along so well that the cats traveled from Anatolia to Europe and the Mediterranean with Neolithic farmers. The seven seas were plagued by vermin to a great extent.

Cats had long since evolved into necessary sailing companions since they consumed supplies and nibbled at rope lines. The Egyptians domesticated their own local cats at the same time as these wandering Anatolian cats set sail. Domestic cats played a significant role in Egyptian religious culture because they were revered for their capacity to hunt vermin, dispatch dangerous snakes, and catch birds. Along with their owners, they were mummified, giving them immortality in frescos, hieroglyphs, statues, and even tombs. While cruising the Nile, Egyptian ship cats kept venomous river snakes at bay. They too started to travel between ports after upgrading to larger vessels. The lineage of the central Asian wildcat F. S. Ornata was transported on ships between India and Egypt during the Roman era.

Centuries later, during the Middle Ages, Viking mariners' ships carried Egyptian cats all the way up to the Baltic Sea. The wildcats from the Near East and North Africa, which were undoubtedly domesticated by this time, continued to move through Europe before setting sail for Australia and the Americas. Most domestic cats in existence today are descendants of F.S. lybica, which originated in either the Near East or Egypt. However, a detailed examination of the genomes and coat patterns of contemporary cats reveals that, in contrast to dogs, which have experienced decades of selective breeding, contemporary cats have a high degree of genetic similarity with extinct cats.

Additionally, we haven't done much to change their natural tendencies aside from making them more docile and friendly. In other words, cats today are still essentially wild animals, as they have always been. ruthless hunters. animals that do not see us as their guardians. They might not be mistaken, given the length of our relationship.