12 ms·

Cat gap

182 points by pxeger1 4y ago

jaza 4y ago
Got me reading up on Carnivora. Interesting, I never knew that walruses and seals are so closely related to canines and felines! Then again, I never studied biology, so there are no doubt plenty more similarly well-known fauna family ties that I never learned about.
- samatman 4y ago
  Anyone who has met a sea lion up close knows that the name 'sea dog' was wasted on sharks. An error which has been corrected in the mascot of a few minor sports clubs.
  - jerrre 4y ago
    seals are called "sea dog" in many Germanic languages
- jobigoud 4y ago
  And hyenas are closer to cats than to dogs.
  - DiggyJohnson 4y ago
    Hyenas are big cats, no? Is this not a commonly known fact?
    - fluoridation 4y ago
      They're not big cats, they're only feliforms. Big cats belong to felidae. But no, it's not commonly known that hyenas are more closely related to cats than to dogs.
      - DiggyJohnson 4y ago
        This blew my mind, we all walk around with some hilariously wrong assumptions. Thanks for the info.
    - SideburnsOfDoom 4y ago
      > Hyenas are big cats, no? No.
      - DiggyJohnson 4y ago
        This is blowing my mind. Thank you for the clear answer.
        SideburnsOfDoom 4y ago
        I always thought of Hyenas as more like "big dogs" - compare with these canids: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/African_wild_dog https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/African_wild_dog But in reality, Hyenas are neither cats nor dogs.
waynecochran 4y ago
stefan8r 4y ago
hatware 4y ago
Nice, love stuff like this. Also see /r/CulturalLayer and /r/AlternativeHistory. Kind of hard to say we know what we're doing when there's 7 million year gaps.
- captainmuon 4y ago
  In this case, it is not that we don't know what was going on, or just couldn't find the cats. Cat-like animals were actually gone from in North America in that period.
  - TedDoesntTalk 4y ago
    No, they were taken to Planet Taco by the alien cats. Years later they revolted, commandeered some ships, and returned to North America.
someweirdperson 4y ago
Searching that page for "virus" yields zero hits. Any reason why that would not be a pausible cause?
- SimplyUnknown 4y ago
  If they died from a virus, why wouldn't they have fossilized like the earlier or later perished cats? It is then more likely that they haven't died there (e.g., migrated away) or died under circumstances that they died under conditions that they couldn't have fossilized (e.g., volcanic eruption).
  - masklinn 4y ago
    I think they’re talking about the cause of the gap e.g. a virus would have emerged and killed all the nimravids.
  - samatman 4y ago
    Just as a point of order, volcanic eruptions are responsible for a great deal of the fossils we actually have. Pompeii is too new for actual fossilization to have occurred, naturally, but it clearly shows why eruption is so good for the fossil record: that, flash floods, and tar pits, are the three best ways to envelop a corpse before it's devoured.
unethical_ban 4y ago
One of the few instances I recall of being swayed by "intelligent design" theories as a lad was what they called the "lack of transitional fossil records". I forget most of it because I tend to believe organized worship of a figure is probably nothing but a cult for power and control. But it supposed that something like a bat would have to have evolved wings, according to Darwin. Then it must mean that it evolved from a mammal that didn't have wings - so then why are there not fossils of weird bat-rats? For all I know, there are in fact such fossils, or any of about 15 other explanations, because the book which I was being homeschooled with, "Biology from a Christian Perspective" or similar, also tried to disprove evolution unironically by describing how many monkeys it would take over a few million years to have randomly pounded out the Bible. Anyway, the cat gap is proof that God hated kittens.
- pavlov 4y ago
  There's a simpler explanation for the rareness of bat fossils: "Bat fossils are extremely rare. Ancient bats, like their modern counterparts, were small and fragile, and they tended to live in tropical habitats, where decay occurs very rapidly. Just about the only way a bat can become fossilized is if it dies in a place where it is swiftly covered with sediment that protects it from scavengers and microorganisms alike." However a transitional bat fossil was discovered around 2000, so probably after your school book was written: "Onychonycteris, however, has a combination of archaic and modern traits that make it exactly the sort of transitional creature evolutionary biologists have longed for. "We chose the genus name Onychonycteris (“clawed bat”) because the fossil displays claws on all five fingers, just as its terrestrial predecessors did. The presence of these claws is not the only feature of Onychonycteris that recalls nonflying mammals. Most bats have very long forearms and tiny hind limbs. Onychonycteris, however, has proportionately shorter forearms and proportionately longer hind limbs than those of other bats. Compared with other mammals, the limb proportions of Onychonycteris are intermediate between those of all previously known bats (including Icaronycteris) and those of arboreal mammals that rely heavily on their forelimbs for locomotion, such as sloths and gibbons. These animals hang from branches much of the time as they climb around in the trees. Perhaps bats evolved from arboreal ancestors that used a similar form of locomotion. "Despite these primitive limb features, other aspects of the anatomy of Onychonycteris indicate that it was capable of powered flight. Its long fingers would have supported wing membranes, and robust clavicles (collarbones) would have helped anchor the forelimbs to the body. Meanwhile a wide rib cage and a keeled sternum would have supported large flight muscles, and a faceted scapula would have secured other specialized, flight-related muscles." https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/uncovering-bat-evolutionary-origins/ https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/uncovering-bat-ev...
boomboomsubban 4y ago
I assumed this was about the European (maybe only English?) practice of keeping mummified cats in a gap in your house to keep away witches. Dunno what topic is more grim, millions of potentially catless years or a mummified cat in your walls.
- b112 4y ago
  I have no mummified cats, yet I have plenty of mummified mice, due to their sheer numbers, and therefore deaths. I presume this is due to a lack of mummified cats in my walls, which would clearly keep mice mummies away, so I shall precure some posthaste!
  - boomboomsubban 4y ago
    You've got it wrong, obviously the witches put the mummified mice in your walls. You need the mummified cat to keep the witches at bay.
    - b112 4y ago
      So the mice are the inverse, magically speaking.
- blueflow 4y ago
  Do you have a source on the fact that this was done intentionally? I only knew that cats go into hiding then they feel their end is near, that they do this on their own. Thus most "cat is missing" posters actually mean their cat died but kept it secret from its humans.
  - boomboomsubban 4y ago
    Turns out there is a Wikipedia article on the subject https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dried_cat https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dried_cat Warning, the article does contain pictures, though not nearly as bad as the ones I saw trying to find the article.
graderjs 4y ago
The Undying Lands, which until that time had been part of the World, were removed forever from the reach of mortal Men, though the Cats could still sail West and come there, if they would. It is to the Undying Lands that the White Ship sails at the end of 3rd Age (25 million years ago). I like to think that the cats went off-world when the cat oracles foresaw that the age of man was coming.
- theflyingelvis 4y ago
  But, then mankind created countertops and things to push off of counter tops. Then they returned to wreak havoc. Additionally, they got hungry.
basicallydan 4y ago
I suppose this doesn't fit on Wikipedia, but obviously one possible cause is that Cats are aliens from a planet abut 3.4 million lightyears away, and during that 7 million year period, all the cats left Earth suddenly because their planet needed them [1]. They used a near-light-speed vehicle to get there, solved the crisis on their home planet, then returned to continue their stewardship of Earth, and then the vehicle flew back. Publishers, line up [1]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J5k8ZQsZJpk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J5k8ZQsZJpk
- hnuser123456 4y ago
  It appears there are no galaxies between 3.26 and 3.9 ly away. Maybe they're from Andromeda at 2.5~3 ly, and took some time to accelerate and decelerate. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_nearest_galaxies https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_nearest_galaxies
  - lcnPylGDnU4H9OF 4y ago
    It's lightyears as measured in cat years.
rsynnott 4y ago
Mr. President, we must not allow a cat gap! (Actually, there _is_ a cat gap: https://i.redd.it/pifb0yx0xii41.png https://i.redd.it/pifb0yx0xii41.png)
6502nerdface 4y ago
If this interests you, then I highly recommend The Big Cats and their Fossil Relatives by Turner and Anton [1]. The illustrations of ancient cat species are almost forensic in style and realism, showing details of muscle and tissue placement, and the text relates a number of fascinating fossil stories, for example a sinkhole into which a sabertooth cat and its prey tumbled, presumably while wrestling to the death, to be entombed together for megayears. [1] https://www.amazon.com/Big-Cats-Their-Fossil-Relatives/dp/0231102283/ref=tmm_hrd_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=1659488536&sr=8-1 https://www.amazon.com/Big-Cats-Their-Fossil-Relatives/dp/02...

182 points by pxeger1 4y ago

jaza 4y ago

Got me reading up on Carnivora. Interesting, I never knew that walruses and seals are so closely related to canines and felines! Then again, I never studied biology, so there are no doubt plenty more similarly well-known fauna family ties that I never learned about.

samatman 4y ago
Anyone who has met a sea lion up close knows that the name 'sea dog' was wasted on sharks. An error which has been corrected in the mascot of a few minor sports clubs.
- jerrre 4y ago
  seals are called "sea dog" in many Germanic languages
jobigoud 4y ago
And hyenas are closer to cats than to dogs.
- DiggyJohnson 4y ago
  Hyenas are big cats, no? Is this not a commonly known fact?
  - fluoridation 4y ago
    They're not big cats, they're only feliforms. Big cats belong to felidae. But no, it's not commonly known that hyenas are more closely related to cats than to dogs.
    - DiggyJohnson 4y ago
      This blew my mind, we all walk around with some hilariously wrong assumptions. Thanks for the info.
  - SideburnsOfDoom 4y ago
    > Hyenas are big cats, no? No.
    - DiggyJohnson 4y ago
      This is blowing my mind. Thank you for the clear answer.
      - SideburnsOfDoom 4y ago
        I always thought of Hyenas as more like "big dogs" - compare with these canids: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/African_wild_dog https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/African_wild_dog But in reality, Hyenas are neither cats nor dogs.

waynecochran 4y ago

stefan8r 4y ago

hatware 4y ago

Nice, love stuff like this. Also see /r/CulturalLayer and /r/AlternativeHistory. Kind of hard to say we know what we're doing when there's 7 million year gaps.

captainmuon 4y ago
In this case, it is not that we don't know what was going on, or just couldn't find the cats. Cat-like animals were actually gone from in North America in that period.
- TedDoesntTalk 4y ago
  No, they were taken to Planet Taco by the alien cats. Years later they revolted, commandeered some ships, and returned to North America.

someweirdperson 4y ago

Searching that page for "virus" yields zero hits. Any reason why that would not be a pausible cause?

SimplyUnknown 4y ago
If they died from a virus, why wouldn't they have fossilized like the earlier or later perished cats? It is then more likely that they haven't died there (e.g., migrated away) or died under circumstances that they died under conditions that they couldn't have fossilized (e.g., volcanic eruption).
- masklinn 4y ago
  I think they’re talking about the cause of the gap e.g. a virus would have emerged and killed all the nimravids.
- samatman 4y ago
  Just as a point of order, volcanic eruptions are responsible for a great deal of the fossils we actually have. Pompeii is too new for actual fossilization to have occurred, naturally, but it clearly shows why eruption is so good for the fossil record: that, flash floods, and tar pits, are the three best ways to envelop a corpse before it's devoured.

unethical_ban 4y ago

One of the few instances I recall of being swayed by "intelligent design" theories as a lad was what they called the "lack of transitional fossil records". I forget most of it because I tend to believe organized worship of a figure is probably nothing but a cult for power and control. But it supposed that something like a bat would have to have evolved wings, according to Darwin. Then it must mean that it evolved from a mammal that didn't have wings - so then why are there not fossils of weird bat-rats? For all I know, there are in fact such fossils, or any of about 15 other explanations, because the book which I was being homeschooled with, "Biology from a Christian Perspective" or similar, also tried to disprove evolution unironically by describing how many monkeys it would take over a few million years to have randomly pounded out the Bible. Anyway, the cat gap is proof that God hated kittens.

pavlov 4y ago
There's a simpler explanation for the rareness of bat fossils: "Bat fossils are extremely rare. Ancient bats, like their modern counterparts, were small and fragile, and they tended to live in tropical habitats, where decay occurs very rapidly. Just about the only way a bat can become fossilized is if it dies in a place where it is swiftly covered with sediment that protects it from scavengers and microorganisms alike." However a transitional bat fossil was discovered around 2000, so probably after your school book was written: "Onychonycteris, however, has a combination of archaic and modern traits that make it exactly the sort of transitional creature evolutionary biologists have longed for. "We chose the genus name Onychonycteris (“clawed bat”) because the fossil displays claws on all five fingers, just as its terrestrial predecessors did. The presence of these claws is not the only feature of Onychonycteris that recalls nonflying mammals. Most bats have very long forearms and tiny hind limbs. Onychonycteris, however, has proportionately shorter forearms and proportionately longer hind limbs than those of other bats. Compared with other mammals, the limb proportions of Onychonycteris are intermediate between those of all previously known bats (including Icaronycteris) and those of arboreal mammals that rely heavily on their forelimbs for locomotion, such as sloths and gibbons. These animals hang from branches much of the time as they climb around in the trees. Perhaps bats evolved from arboreal ancestors that used a similar form of locomotion. "Despite these primitive limb features, other aspects of the anatomy of Onychonycteris indicate that it was capable of powered flight. Its long fingers would have supported wing membranes, and robust clavicles (collarbones) would have helped anchor the forelimbs to the body. Meanwhile a wide rib cage and a keeled sternum would have supported large flight muscles, and a faceted scapula would have secured other specialized, flight-related muscles." https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/uncovering-bat-evolutionary-origins/ https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/uncovering-bat-ev...

boomboomsubban 4y ago

I assumed this was about the European (maybe only English?) practice of keeping mummified cats in a gap in your house to keep away witches. Dunno what topic is more grim, millions of potentially catless years or a mummified cat in your walls.

b112 4y ago
I have no mummified cats, yet I have plenty of mummified mice, due to their sheer numbers, and therefore deaths. I presume this is due to a lack of mummified cats in my walls, which would clearly keep mice mummies away, so I shall precure some posthaste!
- boomboomsubban 4y ago
  You've got it wrong, obviously the witches put the mummified mice in your walls. You need the mummified cat to keep the witches at bay.
  - b112 4y ago
    So the mice are the inverse, magically speaking.
blueflow 4y ago
Do you have a source on the fact that this was done intentionally? I only knew that cats go into hiding then they feel their end is near, that they do this on their own. Thus most "cat is missing" posters actually mean their cat died but kept it secret from its humans.
- boomboomsubban 4y ago
  Turns out there is a Wikipedia article on the subject https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dried_cat https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dried_cat Warning, the article does contain pictures, though not nearly as bad as the ones I saw trying to find the article.

graderjs 4y ago

The Undying Lands, which until that time had been part of the World, were removed forever from the reach of mortal Men, though the Cats could still sail West and come there, if they would. It is to the Undying Lands that the White Ship sails at the end of 3rd Age (25 million years ago). I like to think that the cats went off-world when the cat oracles foresaw that the age of man was coming.

theflyingelvis 4y ago
But, then mankind created countertops and things to push off of counter tops. Then they returned to wreak havoc. Additionally, they got hungry.

basicallydan 4y ago

I suppose this doesn't fit on Wikipedia, but obviously one possible cause is that Cats are aliens from a planet abut 3.4 million lightyears away, and during that 7 million year period, all the cats left Earth suddenly because their planet needed them [1]. They used a near-light-speed vehicle to get there, solved the crisis on their home planet, then returned to continue their stewardship of Earth, and then the vehicle flew back. Publishers, line up [1]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J5k8ZQsZJpk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J5k8ZQsZJpk

hnuser123456 4y ago
It appears there are no galaxies between 3.26 and 3.9 ly away. Maybe they're from Andromeda at 2.5~3 ly, and took some time to accelerate and decelerate. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_nearest_galaxies https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_nearest_galaxies
- lcnPylGDnU4H9OF 4y ago
  It's lightyears as measured in cat years.

rsynnott 4y ago

Mr. President, we must not allow a cat gap! (Actually, there _is_ a cat gap: https://i.redd.it/pifb0yx0xii41.png https://i.redd.it/pifb0yx0xii41.png)

6502nerdface 4y ago

If this interests you, then I highly recommend The Big Cats and their Fossil Relatives by Turner and Anton [1]. The illustrations of ancient cat species are almost forensic in style and realism, showing details of muscle and tissue placement, and the text relates a number of fascinating fossil stories, for example a sinkhole into which a sabertooth cat and its prey tumbled, presumably while wrestling to the death, to be entombed together for megayears. [1] https://www.amazon.com/Big-Cats-Their-Fossil-Relatives/dp/0231102283/ref=tmm_hrd_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=1659488536&sr=8-1 https://www.amazon.com/Big-Cats-Their-Fossil-Relatives/dp/02...