Cat in da house

Ever wondered the evolution of cats?

Actually, the answer is quite simple: they didn't evolve from anything.


Cats came the earth before we did. Their litters were a role model for civilization. Their only goal was to be loved, to be worshiped and fed by slaves also known as human beings. They successfully ruled their kingdom, making everybody around them be their faithful servant. If you are not a slave yet, one day you will sure become one; and even if you don't, they couldn't care any less. They will remain in power - unless dogs come up with an idea.

After my Colbert report kind of intro, here comes the actual point: How did the evolution of cats occur? How did cats become indoor animals? A recent paper in PLos One asks the same question [click for the original paper] and manages to beat my answer, somehow.

Turns out it all goes to parallelism of reaction between an organism's survival and anatomy. Here is a little summary of the paper:

* In the modern cat lineage, the primary evolutionary driving force is "bite forces", irrespective of body size, enabling these cats to dispatch prey with a powerful killing-bite.

* Large predators need large prey, this also implied enlargement of the upper canines to facilitate a strong penetrating killing bite.

*Large pantherines are in fact, not anatomically different from small species (see skull anatomy); they are simply larger, and selection for uniformly high bite forces implies elongation and elevation of the posterior part of the skull, and a stronger zygomatic arch to encompass increases in adductor musculature.

*The braincase makes up more of the total skull volume large species, it helps to maintain high bite forces. Therefore the body mass and the posterior part of the skull is in correlation. Small cats simply don't need a deeper biting force. (The author refers to the large skull shapes in puma and pantherine species as a result of this skull - sagittal crest correlation)

Thanks to Greg Laden's blog for making me see this study. And thanks to my cat for not biting me. Heal the great meow!