٭ Information Hub of the Felius Catus

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Cat

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    The origin of the English word 'cat', Old English catt, is thought to be the Late Latin word cattus, which was first used at the beginning of the 6th century.[18] It was suggested that the word 'cattus' is derived from an Egyptian precursor of Coptic ϣⲁⲩ šau, "tomcat", or its feminine form suffixed with -t.[19] The Late Latin word is also thought to be derived from Afro-Asiatic languages.[20] The Nubian word kaddîska "wildcat" and Nobliin kadīs are possible sources or cognates.[21] The Nubian word may be a loan from Arabic قَطّ‎ qaṭṭ ~ قِطّ qiṭṭ. It is "equally likely that the forms might derive from an ancient Germanic word, imported into Latin and thence to Greek and to Syriac and Arabic".[22] The word may be derived from Germanic and Northern European languages, and ultimately be borrowed from Uralic, cf. Nothern Sami gáđfi, "female stoat", and Hungarian hölgy, "stoat"; from Proto-Uralic *käďwä, "female (of a furred animal)".[23]

    The English puss, extended as pussy and pussycat, is attested from the 16th century and may have been introduced from Dutch poes or from Low German pusskatte, related to Swedish kattepus, or Norwegian pus, pusekatt. Similar forms exist in Lithuanian puižė and Irish puisín or puiscín. The etymology of this word is unknown, but it may have simply arisen from a sound used to attract a cat.[24][25]

    A male cat is called a tom or tomcat[26] (or a gib,[27] if neutered) An unspayed female is called a queen,[28] especially in a cat-breeding context. A juvenile cat is referred to as a kitten. In Early Modern English, the word kitten was interchangeable with the now-obsolete word catling.[29] A group of cats can be referred to as a clowder or a glaring.[30]

    Skulls of a wildcat (top left), a housecat (top right), and a hybrid between the two (bottom centre).

    The earliest known indication for the taming of an African wildcat (F. lybica) was excavation close by a human Neolithic grave in Shillourokambos, southern Cyprus, dating to about 9,200 to 9,500 years before present. As there is no evidence of native mammalian fauna on Cyprus, the inhabitants of this Neolithic village most likely brought the cat and other wild mammals to the island from the Middle Eastern mainland.[44] Scientists therefore assume that African wildcats were attracted to early human settlements in the Fertile Cresent by rodents, in particular the house mouse (Mus musculus), and were tamed by Neolithic farmers. This commensal relationship between early farmers and tamed cats lasted thousands of years. As agricultural practices spread, so did tame and domesticated cats.[11][6] Wildcats of Egypt contributed to the maternal gene pool of the domestic cat at a later time.[45] The earliest known evidence for the occurrence of the domestic cat in Greece dates to around 1200 BC. Greek, Phoenician, Carthaginian and Etruscan traders introduced domestic cats to southern Europe.[46] During the Roman Empire they were introduced to Corsica and Sardinia before the beginning of the 1st millennium.[47] By the 5th century BC, they were familiar animals around settlements in Magna Graecia and Etruria.[48] By the end of the Roman Empire in the 5th century, the Egyptian domestic cat lineage had arrived in a Baltic Sea port in northern Germany.[45]

    During domestication, cats have undergone only minor changes in anatomy and behavior, and they are still capable of surviving in the wild. Several natural behaviors and characteristics of wildcats may have preadapted them for domestication as pets. These traits include their small size, social nature, obvious body language, love of play and relatively high intelligence. Captive Leopardus cats may also display affectionate behavior toward humans, but were not domesticated.[49] House cats often mate with feral cats,[50] producing hybrids such as the Kellas cat in Scotland.[51] Hypbridisation between domestic and other Felinae species is also possible.[52]

    Development of cat breeds started in the mid 19th century.[53]An analysis of the domestic cat genome revealed that the ancestral wildcat genome was significantly altered in the process of domestication as specific mutations were selected to develop cat breeds.[54] Most breeds are founded on random-bred domestic cats. Genetic diversityof these breeds varies between regions, and is lowest in purebred populations, which show more than 20 deleterious genetic disorders.[55]

    A cat eating a fish under a chair, a mural in an Egyptian tomb dating to the 15th century BC.