The origin, ecology and evolution of cats in the Middle Ages.

Cats conquered the ancient world long before they conquered it.
results published June 19 in Nature - Ecology and Evolution.
researchers analyzed the DNA of more than 200 cats over a 9,000-year period, from Romania in the Middle Stone Age to Angola in the 20th century.
results reveal the spread of cats from the Neolithic era, the contribution of populations in the Near East and Egypt to the gene pool of cats, and the origins of the medieval tiger-spotted cats.
cats domesticated relatively later than dogs, and lived with humans for thousands of years before they were domesticated.
most likely reason for human domestication of cats is that cats can catch agricultural animals and have a mutually beneficial relationship with humans.
Eva-Maria Geigl of the French Centre for Scientific Research in Paris and the Seventh University of Paris, and colleagues collected and sequenced the remains of cats from different historical periods, including Egyptian cat mummies and modern African wild cats.
they found that two major linees contributed to today's cats.
was IV-A, first in southwestern Asia and then spread to Europe around 4400 D.
the other is IV-C, an African cat genealogy that dominates Egypt, where the mummies come mainly from.
the authors found that the IV-C lineage spread through the Mediterranean in 1000 B.C. along trade routes, possibly because merchant ships needed cats to control rodents.
these exotic cats arrived in these areas and interbred with local cats or wild cats.
addition, surprisingly, recessive genetic mutations associated with tiger spots only emerged in the Middle Ages: first in southwestern Asia and then throughout Europe and Africa.
authors suggest that the domestication of the earliest cats may have focused on behavioral rather than aesthetic.
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