For my mother and father for Myrla Chris and Ernie and forever for the Bunster HELEN For Lisa Elsie and Steve my favorite fellow cat lovers ROBERT
a A A is for Ancestors and Anatomy All the cats that came before us Saber-toothed and Proailurus Throughout all time a cat’s a cat for millions of years they’ve proven the fact Scientists working with DNA have recently gained more insight into how cats devel oped from their prehistoric ancestors and migrated around the globe Early fossil records for cats are few making tracing the family tree for modern cats difficult Both cats and dogs are thought to have descended from an ancient precursor Miacis a weasel-like carnivore that lived 45 to 50 million years ago The earliest known cat Proailurus was not much bigger than a modern day house cat Proailurus lived in Europe 20-30 million years ago This tree-dwell ing predator weighed about 20 pounds had large eyes sharp teeth and claws and a long tail Larger cats appeared as mammals began to dominate the earth These cats distant cousins of our cats flourished in the Ice Age throughout most of the world They ambushed grazing mammals Mastodons and Mammoths for food Smilodon knife tooth called the saber-toothed cat because of its seven-inch fangs is the best known of these Scientists know a lot about Smilodon because of the thousands of fossils left in the La Brea Tar Pits in California These cats became extinct at the end of the Ice Age about 11,000 years ago
Recent research shows that cats as we know them today evolved rapidly in the last 11 million years Feline ancestors migrated from Asia to Africa and across the Bering Strait into the Americas everywhere except Australia and Antarctica six to eight million years ago Modern domestic cats are very similar to their wild ancestors in behavior and anatomy From earliest times cats were designed for hunting with strong flexible bodies sharp claws and teeth exceptional balance and speed with the main differ ences being size Most all cats also show considerable resemblance in social behavior as solitary hunters coming together only to mate While we don’t really know the coloration of these early cats it’s likely that environment determined body markings to blend in with surroundings and hide from prey Cats in grasslands are pale and striped forest and jungle cats are spotted and darker
