if domesticated cats came from the wild cat, where did the wild cat originate from?
Me and my boyfriend were wondering how did domesticated cats evolve? If they came from "the wild cat" as i have seen some answers then how did any of them evolve?
Public Comments
1. They evolved from early weasel-like mammals.Carnivorous mammals evolved from Miacids small pine marten-like insectivores that lived 60 million - 55 million years ago. The miacids split into two lines: Miacidae and Viverravidae. Miacidae gave rise to Arctoidea/Canoidea group (bears and dogs) while Viverravidae gave rise to Aeluroidea/Feloidea group (cats, hyenas, civets, mongooses) around 48 million years ago. The Viverravidae also gave rise to a group called Nimravidae. The Nimravids were cat-like creatures that evolved in parallel with true cats; they are not part of true cat lineage and have left no living descendents.
The first true cat to arise from Viverravidae was Proailurus (first cat") around 30 million years ago. The best-known species was P lemanensis, found in France.
Proailurus was a small weasel-like cat with relatively short legs and a long body. It had one more premolar on each side of its bottom jaw than do modern cats. About 20 million years ago, Proailurus gave rise to Pseudaelurus. Pseudaelurus were Miocene ancestors of cats. Pseudaelurus lorteti was about the size of a large lynx while P validus was the size of a large lynx or small puma. Three other species of early cat are described as Pratifelis, Vishnufelis and Sivaelurus (S chinjienis).Pseudaelurus went on to split into two major groups: the Machairodontinae (true sabre-tooths) and Schizailurus (the ancestor of the modern day Felidae group).
Long and wordy, but it was the best answer i could give you.
2. Selective breeding (as in dogs). Say people bred wild cats and a genetic mutation occurred in a male and female kitten (we'll use the bobbed tail). Those 2 cats were bred and their offspring all had bobbed tails. Someone found this trait desirable and continued to breed for the bobbed tail.
Feel free to input other things like; color, head type, coat length etc... in place of bobbed tail.
3. Millions of years of evolution... In a nutshell, everything came from the first bacteria. And evolved into what was necessary for them to survive.
