Pets
Related: About this forumCats are perfect, per Scientific American.
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/cats-are-perfect-an-evolutionary-biologist-explains-why/But we knew that.
This all goes back to the fact that cats are extremely specialized. Every member of the order of mammals known as the carnivorans, including cats and dogs, has an upper fourth premolar and a lower first molar that form what we call the slicing pair, which slices meat. A lot of carnivorans retain molars behind the slicing pair that can grind up stuff such as vegetation. But cats have lost pretty much everything behind their slicing teeth. They might have a little nub, a peg tooth, but it cant process stuff. This is why foxes are perfectly happy going through garbage, whereas leopards will kill livestock instead.
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Cats have nailed this one thing so well that they all do it and just come up with slightly different sizes. Thats why theyre perfect, evolutionarily. They dont need variation. They might get bigger or smaller, but they dont change anything else because theyre doing it just right otherwise. Theyre not jacks-of-all-trades; theyre masters of one.
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There are lots of things that have tried to be catsother groups of mammals that have evolutionarily converged on cats. Marsupials have tried to be cats. An extinct group of carnivorans called creodonts have tried to be cats. Weasels have tried to be cats. Theres all kinds of stuff that has tried to be a bit catlike in different waysmongooses, things like that. But they kind of dip in and dip out of being cats, and they cant really outcompete cats in their space. They havent lasted. All of those things that have tried to be cats, they do other things, too, and those things are fine. But there arent a lot of things that are around today that do a very good job of being a cat.... You cant just casually try to be a cat. You have to commit. Cats have committed to being cats. Everything else is just sort of dabbling, and it doesnt work.
regnaD kciN
(26,568 posts)lastlib
(24,842 posts)I would have it MADE in the SHADE! - - - Food, ear scritches, belly rubs warm chair by the fire, boxes galore--everything I could possibly want--except my, um, well, youknow.....down there..........
Meee-OWWW!
lastlib
(24,842 posts)If you don't believe it, just ask one!
They are well-aware that they were once worshipped as gods, and they understand why, and they haven't forgotten the fact.
Think. Again.
(17,418 posts)Jack-o-Lantern
(1,010 posts)to 99.9% of the people Im obligated to share the planet with.
Beartracks
(13,556 posts)niyad
(119,637 posts)PSPS
(14,120 posts)Permanut
(6,615 posts)Where did they really come from?
So far, my cat Tiger hasn't given the slightest hint
LudwigPastorius
(10,737 posts)Warpy
(113,130 posts)I had an old newspaper clipping of a lion on his back, his keeper scratching just the right place on his neck. The position of the paws told me he was paddling the air exactly the way my house cats did when they were flat on their backs and I found just the right spot.
I don't know everything about how cats work, but I did spot that.
Unwind Your Mind
(2,143 posts)Randomthought
(890 posts)I have lived with cats for71 years (family pictures of me hugging a cat as a two year old) and they are not only evolutionary perfect but they are incredible problem solvers.
They are very intelligent an8mals.
calimary
(84,186 posts)FirstLight
(14,009 posts)my current "old man" kitty, Oscar, is 11 but still a full on baby kitten when sleeping and cuddling. It's why he's my Baaaabbbby and gets all the foods and loves...lol
He's also a total hunter and murderer of small creatures in the yard and will ignore me when he's outside...
like, "mommmm.... I'm TRYING to be a jungle cat, PLEEEAZE stop talking to me how cute I am!"
we just recently added a little black demon kitty 'purrrsephone, princess of purrrrgatory'
she's a whole ass crazy bitch bt we love her
she's a year old now and finally settling down into her kittenness, and showing Oscar who's in charge...lol
Cats rule...
Starseer
(76 posts)"Ev'rybody, ev'rybody,
ev'rybody wants to be a cat!"
"Ev'rybody, ev'rybody,
ev'rybody wants to be a cat!"
eppur_se_muova
(37,352 posts)Was just reading about this a few days ago. Pure coincidence.