Randolph E. Schmid, Associated Press
June 28, 2007 — Garfield, Morris and the Aristocats get the fame, but look to the origins of today's furry felines and you find "lybica," a Middle Eastern wildcat. Domestic cats can be traced to wild progenitors that interbred well over 100,000 years ago, new research indicates.
"House cats — which includes fancy breeds and feral cats — those cats all form a genetic group that is virtually indistinguishable from ones in the Middle East," said Stephen J. O'Brien of the National Cancer Institute.
"So, domestication, for sure, took place in the Middle East where those cats live today," added O'Brien, co-author of a paper appearing in this week's online edition of the journal Science.
Carlos Driscoll, of Oxford University and NCI, and an international team of researchers studied the origins of those loving and aloof, graceful and finicky pets that entertain or supervise millions of homes.
It's serious research, because cats are a model for some human genetic diseases, such as polycystic kidney disease and retinal atrophy, Driscoll explained in a telephone interview. In addition, the work is expected to assist in conservation efforts for wild cats, he said.
Cats' ancestry was traced to five types of wild cats, but that doesn't mean they were domesticated five times, Driscoll said. Rather, these five types managed to interbreed at various times, with the result being Felis silvestris lybica, which appears to be the ancestor of modern house cats.
"This was an amazing experiment when animals came out of the wild," O'Brien said. "Cats are known for their ferocious, deadly nature," O'Brien said, so this is an extraordinary change for them.
Cats may have been domesticated once or many times, he said, adding that the most likely case is they were domesticated once and other wild cats bred with the domesticated ones.
"I wasn't there, but all the data supports that," he said.
The researchers found wild cats, with DNA identical to domestic cats, in Israel, United Arab Emirates, Bahrain and Saudi Arabia.
By studying the mitochondrial DNA of 979 domestic and wild cats from Europe, Asia and Africa the researchers concluded that the origins of the species — what O'Brien calls a feline Adam and Eve — developed between 130,000 and 160,000 years ago. Mitochondrial DNA is passed down from mother to child.
