A study published last year and recently pondered by the New Yorker shows domesticated cats are not as far removed from wildcats as dogs are from wolves.
Writer Ferris Jabr points out in The New Yorker story that cats have evolved through selective breeding for a relatively short time, compared to dogs:
"In a study published last year… DNA from several wildcats and domestic cat breeds… confirmed that, genetically, cats have diverged much less from their wildcat ancestors than dogs have from wolves, and that the cat genome has much more modest signatures of artificial selection. Because cats also retain sharper hunting skills than dogs, abandoned felines are more likely to survive without any human help. And in some countries, feral cats routinely breed with their wildcat cousins."
The study, which was published last November, confirmed that "after 9,000-odd years of living alongside humans, the house cat remains only semi-domesticated, according to a report… in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. (Source: LA Times)
The researchers said there are currently about 40 different breeds of cat after 200 years of selective breeding by humans.
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