3 ms·

Ok, now explain cats.

• sjwright 8y ago
  Artificial selection.
  • starbeast 8y ago
    We are now miles off the topic, but curiosity got the better of me (or did it?) so I thought I would check the research... >"The domestication of cats took a different trajectory. Wildcats are improbable candidates for domestication (see Table 3). Like all felids, wildcats are obligate carnivores, meaning they have a limited metabolic ability to digest anything except proteins (33). Cats live a solitary existence and defend exclusive territories (making them more attached to places than to people). Furthermore, cats do not perform directed tasks and their actual utility is debatable, even as mousers (34). [In this latter role, terrier dogs and the ferret (a domesticated polecat) are more suitable.] Accordingly, there is little reason to believe an early agricultural community would have actively sought out and selected the wildcat as a house pet. Rather, the best inference is that wildcats exploiting human environments were simply tolerated by people and, over time and space, they gradually diverged from their “wild” relatives (35, 36). Thus, whereas adaptation in barnyard animals and dogs to human dominion was largely driven by artificial selection, the original domestic cat was a product of natural selection." - From wild animals to domestic pets, an evolutionary view of domestication https://www.pnas.org/content/106/Supplement_1/9971 https://www.pnas.org/content/106/Supplement_1/9971