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Illuminated Heritage

February 2, 2006

Cat Family Tree

Alright alright, you’ve probably all heard and very few of you probably care, but science is coming closer to mapping out the cat family tree. Those of us owned by cats won’t be that surprised to find that our pets or rather, our masters, aren’t that different from their wild cousins. In case you don’t know, I have several cats, the newest being a Bengal named Aramis (more dignified,but older, photo). I found it interesting that there are only 37 modern cats, but then I tried to name them all and didn’t do so well, so there are actually more than I thought! Also, that the ancestors of the Cheetah came from North America. The largest cat is the Tiger and several of the subspecies have perished in the last century, which doesn’t make me happy…. It was also interesting to see that the closest relations to our housetigers are the Black-Footed Cat and the Jungle Cat. Of course, for Aramis, his closest relation is the Asian Leopard Cat.

Here are the two articles I read:
Purrfect – Garfield’s family tree mapped out

Ancient Wanderlust Key to Cat Family Tree (this asks you to login to read)

For those who might like to learn more about the Big Cats, there’s a great Website called Big Cats Online! Check it out!

posted by Kay at 1:10 pm | Comments (0)

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