This cat first appeared in the Eocene 30 million years ago. The earliest cat was the first cat, which was a little bigger than the domestic cat.
In Eocene, the first cat gradually evolved into a fake cat, which was the ancestor of post-cats and modern cats.
In fact, cats are not all large animals, and there are many smaller ones, such as Yunmao, Karakal, Golden Cat and Lynx.
The reason why cats are so divided is that there are too many branches. Because cats have evolved independently for a long time, and because there has been no gene communication for too long in evolution, reproductive isolation has evolved between cats.
Cats are mostly carnivores, with prominent canine teeth, and can attack prey in the form of ambush and encirclement.
During the evolution of cats, a gene named Tas 1r2 was mutated, which made cats unable to taste sweet, so cats mainly ate meat, while canines and Xiong Ke animals still ate plants, so they were omnivores.
Cats are natural hunters. In order to adapt to hunting, their body structure has evolved a series of characteristics.
First of all, cats' eyes are mostly in front of their faces, while herbivores' eyes are mostly on both sides of their faces.
The reason why the eyes of herbivores are distributed like this is that herbivores need to observe whether there are natural enemies approaching in real time. Once the natural enemies get close, all they can do is run away. The direction of running and the distance from natural enemies are not within their consideration, so herbivores who evolved monocular vision stayed through natural selection, and the eyes on both sides of their faces helped to expand their horizons.
Carnivores don't need to pay attention to whether there are natural enemies near them when hunting prey, so expanding their horizons is not obviously helpful to them.
However, carnivores need to judge the distance between their prey and themselves in real time. If you use monocular vision, it is easy to make mistakes, while binocular vision can see more stereoscopic things, so carnivores have binocular vision, while most cats have binocular vision.
Furthermore, in order to better bite the prey, the teeth of carnivores are left by natural selection, because their canine teeth are sharp, while herbivores need to grind the roots of plants, so the teeth of herbivores are flat.
Also, the cat's eyes will reflect light at night, because there is a layer of reflective cells in the cat's retina, which can reflect information back to the retina and let the retina see more light, so the cat's night vision ability is also very strong.
These characteristics are very helpful for cats to hunt. In addition, some cats have genetic mutations in evolution, and some larger animals in some areas are more likely to survive, such as lions, tigers and leopards, so they are left behind by natural selection. These species have become the top of the local food chain because of their large size and strong bite.
I don't know if you have noticed that cats who obviously live in one place are all different in size. For example, tigers living in woodlands are bigger than golden cats. Why?
In fact, this may be because they prey on different foods, leading to different evolutionary results. The prey of big cats is large ungulates. Domestic cats mainly prey on rodents, such as mice, voles and birds, while lynx prey on small mammals.
Due to the different prey, different living environment and the influence of neutral genes, the body shape of cats varies greatly.
In addition, after the appearance of human beings, because humans need cats to protect granaries from rodents, small wild cats have entered human vision. Humans domesticated them for their own needs and cultivated some new varieties according to their own preferences, such as smaller cats.
Due to the existence of human beings, some species that could not survive in nature are now preserved, such as hairless cats and folded-eared cats that cannot reproduce the next generation. Therefore, the evolution of domestic cats is mainly influenced by humans.
However, large cats are a threat to human beings because of their large size and strong bite, so human beings have not domesticated them, so their body shape is mainly influenced by nature.
Cats are one of the most successful species in the world. They are not only diverse and numerous, but some cats even control the behavior of the local food chain. For example, lynx mainly hunt rabbits, and their existence controls the number of local rabbits.
The most famous cats are lions, tigers, leopards and domestic cats. Many people may wonder why lions, tigers and leopards are so big and domestic cats are so small.
The earliest cats appeared about 30 million years ago. All modern cats and saber-toothed tigers have the same ancestor. They are primitive cats that lived in Europe and West Asia 25 million years ago. By 20 million years ago, the original cat evolved into a fake cat, and the descendants of the fake cat were divided into two branches: saber-toothed tiger and real cat.
The ancestor of modern cats: primitive cats.
All the existing cats belong to real cats. Their different species parted ways about11million years ago. The leopard is the first to differentiate, including the well-known lion, tiger and leopard, and finally the cat, of which the domestic cat is a member.
Therefore, whether domestic cats or lions, tigers and leopards have the same ancestor, but in the later evolution, they adapted to different lives in different environments, resulting in completely different body shapes and sizes. Lions, tigers and leopards adapt to feed on large ungulates, so their bodies are getting bigger and bigger, while African wildcats, the ancestors of domestic cats, adapt to feed on rodents, so they still maintain a petite figure like their ancestors. The former is the top predator in nature and the "king of beasts", while the latter is an expert in catching mice. They are all born killers and are favored by nature.
The king of beasts: the lion
Although there are only a few well-known cats, there are actually many kinds, about 40 kinds, more than half of which are about the same size as domestic cats and even smaller than domestic cats.
Experts divide cats into three categories according to their body shapes: large cats, medium cats and small cats.
Big cats: 7 species, such as lions, tigers, jaguars, cougars, leopards, cheetahs and snow leopards, weighing over 40 kilograms.
The biggest cat: Siberian tiger
Puma, a large feline of Cat subfamily.
Cheetah was once classified as subfamily, but now it is a member of Cat subfamily.
Medium-sized cats: There are 13 species, including 1 1 species of clouded leopard, Sunda clouded leopard and Catinae. Most of the well-known big cats are medium-sized cats, such as Karakal, serval cat, Eurasian lynx, cat and so on.
The largest medium-sized cat; Eurasian lynx
Clouded leopard, a medium-sized feline of Leopard subfamily.
Domestic medium-sized cat: Asian golden cat, which is regarded as a kind of tiger and leopard among the people.
Miniature cats: including about 20 members of Cat subfamily, all weighing less than 10 kg. African wildcat, the wild type of domestic cat, is a relatively large member of the small cat family, and only a few species such as jungle cat, leopard cat, desert cat and thin waist cat are bigger than it. Most small cats are smaller than domestic cats, including clouded cats, black-footed cats and rusty cats.
Jungle cat: the largest small cat, and also the largest cat.
The most common small cat in China: leopard cat.
Pocket cat: a rusty cat
It can be seen that cats are not all as big as lions, tigers and leopards, and there are many races like domestic cats, which belong to the lower-middle size in the whole cat family.
From the above introduction, it should be clear to everyone that the reason why the domestic cat didn't get bigger is that the ancestor of the domestic cat, the African wildcat, was not big, and the domestic cat was domesticated by humans for less than 5000 years, so such a short time was not enough to make a big change in the genes of the domestic cat.
The ancestor of domestic cats: African wildcats
Secondly, domestic cats are kept at home by human beings, and their main purpose is to catch mice. They have no worries about food and clothing and have lost the motivation for large-scale development. Therefore, ordinary domestic cats are not bigger than African wildcats, but slightly smaller. Humans are now directionally cultivating domestic cat breeds, mainly to make them more docile and lovely, not bigger. However, humans have cultivated some larger domestic cat breeds, such as Maine Coon.
The largest domestic cat species: Maine Coon.
Cats become smaller not because they are domesticated, but because cats have embarked on two different development routes in their long-term survival and evolution. Lions, tigers, leopards and other big cats have formed the conditions to occupy the top of the food chain, while other cats have gradually evolved into small cats to meet the requirements of narrow space at night, food shortage and fast predation.
Cats are the most alien-like animals. Maybe aliens are another humanized branch of cats. Every time I see its ethereal eyes, it makes people full of curiosity and reverie.
The richest cat in the world is a cat owned by a rich man in Europe. The rich man left a manor before his death, and several servants waited on him every day. Such days will be left to his descendants after his death.
Kittens are also very powerful. African lynx and civet cats can even prey on animals two or three times bigger than themselves. Crocodiles have always been one of the most feared and headache animals for wild animals. Only tigers or leopards can hunt!
A few years ago, the video of a lady stepping on a cat aroused the anger of netizens, so human flesh collected her name, work unit and even family members. The denunciation and scolding of her never stopped, which had a little impact on her life and once made her almost collapse and almost commit suicide.
Only cats can control dogs at home.
I am a cat research institute that unlocks the new way of raising cats scientifically!
———————————————————————————————————
In fact, the subject will have such an impression, mostly because most of what we can see, shoot and be recorded by human beings are big cats.
There are also many small cats in the world, which are very small and dexterous, so few people have photographed them.
For example, it is a soft and lovely cat with the highest success rate (60%)-black-footed cat ↓
The above picture shows the sitting height comparison between the black-footed cat and the vehicle management office (crazy car, director of the office of the cat research institute)
In addition to the black-footed cat, we are familiar with the expression pack network celebrity-rabbit ↓
Actually, it's about the size of a domestic cat.
There are also sand dune cats, which are only 45-57 cm long.
Embroidered tabby cat, about 45cm long.
Fishing cats are 66 ~ 85 cm long.
The world of cats is actually more colorful than we thought ~
———————————————————————————————————
Above.
Because only "cats" among cats choose to be close to human beings and live with us, in other words, cats choose us, not us. In the course of thousands of years of evolution, their bodies have changed to a certain extent, and humans have given them a name-cat.
I dare not say that the first cat in the world is as big as a tiger, but I dare say it is definitely bigger than the average domestic cat now. Why does it get smaller? There are two main reasons. The first is to cater to people's preferences. Dogs must have been big when they were domesticated thousands of years ago. At that time, people domesticated dogs for the sole purpose of guarding their homes. But now, with the development of the times, people's demand for the size of dogs has changed differently. The smaller the body, even deformed dogs are very popular in the market. The same is true of cats.
As for the second reason, it is actually related to people's needs. If everything people did thousands of years ago was for a reason, then dogs can look after the house, horses can carry goods, chickens, ducks and geese can lay eggs and eat meat, then what can cats do? Catch mice, of course!
At that time, many countries were deeply troubled by rodents. Cats may be bigger at first, but you can imagine tigers catching mice. Their huge size makes them inflexible and cannot solve the problem of rodents well. So under the constant screening and elimination, cats with relatively small size and more flexible movements are "appreciated" by human beings, and their genes have been inherited. Don't get close to people! Don't be rigid Don't be too wild ……
Although some domestic cats have almost lost the ability to catch mice, it must be said that their ancestors were really good hunters.
This is a very interesting question. In my impression, cats are mostly fierce carnivores above medium size, but they are all cats. Why are cats so small? Let's discuss this interesting problem together.
(overview of cats)
Cats have three subfamilies: Cheetah subfamily, Cat subfamily and Leopard subfamily. There is only one kind of animal in Cheetah subfamily, which is cheetah. Cheetah is a subfamily alone because it is very different from other cats, that is, cheetahs can't extend their claws, but other cats can.
Followed by the leopard subfamily, the leopard subfamily is actually the general name of large cats, including clouded leopard (clouded leopard and tower-seeking clouded leopard) and leopard (lion, tiger, leopard and jaguar). In other words, neither cheetah nor leopard is a leopard.
The clouded leopard is the smallest of all the animals in Leopard subfamily (the total length of head and tail is about1.7m). The body length (head and tail length) of other leopard subfamilies is more than 2 meters.
Finally, the cat subfamily is a general term for small and medium-sized cats. However, there are exceptions. Puma belongs to the subfamily Felinae, but its body length is close to 2 meters, so Puma is the largest subfamily Felinae. Except for pumas, most animals of Catinae are relatively small. The cat mentioned by the subject is one of them.
(Leopard subfamily)
(Cheetah, the exclusive animal of Cheetah Subfamily)
(durable kitten)
As can be seen from the above introduction, big cats are animals of Leopard subfamily and Cheetah subfamily. They have three similarities.
0 1 is a carnivore living in the wild. The animals of Leopard subfamily and Cheetah subfamily are all natural animals and carnivores.
The size of the prey. Most big cats feed on medium and large herbivores, which means that the final shape of these animals is determined by the wild environment and the size of prey.
Most of them are solitary animals. In all the leopard subfamilies and cheetahsubfamilies, except lions, all the others are solitary animals, and they need to hunt their own food, so their huge size is more suitable for their survival.
The cat is the smallest cat. They are so small for two reasons.
0 1 Living environment Most cats live with humans and can eat without hunting. Especially in today's increasingly improved living standards, the treatment of cats can be described as a rising tide, and many people even lament that "people are not as good as cats."
Food even wild cats, their prey are mostly small rodents, insects, small mammals and so on. These animals don't need to be too big to be captured at all. Therefore, the cat's eating habits determine its body shape.
To sum up, the size of animals is determined by their living environment and eating habits. Although the ancestors of cats are the same, in the long evolutionary history, different animals have different lifestyles. And different lifestyles determine their own forms.
Tigers among cats can weigh up to 350 kg, while the smallest cat is only about 1 kg, with a difference of 350 times. It is really not a "disparity" that can be clearly stated. Then, why are cats such as tigers, lions and leopards so huge and cats so thin?
My first thought is human beings. Why are they all people? There is such a big difference in height and body shape between China and the West, and they are all from China. The height difference between north and south is also great. Some brothers and even twins have the same parents, but their bodies are also very different ... many people may say that it is genetically determined. That's right. In addition to genes, there is also the transformation of nature and environment to evolve!
Cats are divided into three subfamilies, namely Cheetah subfamily (such as cheetah, which has been merged into Cat subfamily), Catsubfamily (small and medium-sized cats, such as common cats, but also larger ones, such as cougars) and Leopard subfamily (including lions, tigers and leopards). * * * There are 38 species of 14 genus.
A larger category.
Lions and tigers deserve it. African lions are the only bisexual cats. The average weight of a male lion is 240kg, and its body length can reach 3.2 meters. Siberian tiger is the biggest tiger. Siberian tiger, also known as Siberian tiger, is 2.5m long and weighs 350kg.
Very small
The overall size of the cat is relatively small, among which the embroidered tabby cat can be said to be the smallest, weighing only 350 times that of the tiger. Embroidered tabby cat is only the size of a leaf, weighing about 1kg, and the older one is only 2kg. Compared with the same period last year, an adult domestic cat can reach about 5- 10 Jin, which is equivalent to 5- 10 embroidered tabby cats.
The ancestor of modern cats: primitive cats.
Although cats vary greatly in size, they all have the same ancestor, that is, primitive cats. Thirty million years ago, the earliest cats appeared. All modern cats and saber-toothed tigers have the same ancestor. They are primitive cats that lived in Europe and West Asia 25 million years ago. About 20 million years ago, the original cat evolved into a fake cat, and the descendants of the fake cat were divided into two branches: saber-toothed tiger and real cat. Cats and lions, tigers and leopards all have the same ancestor, but in later evolution, they adapted to different lives in different environments and produced completely different shapes and sizes.
Why are cats so small and other cats so big?
First, lions, tigers and leopards all live in the wild and are carnivores. They have evolved to feed on large ungulates, so they are getting bigger and bigger. In addition, their prey is also big, and they can't survive without getting bigger. In other words, the wild environment and prey exercise them.
Secondly, the ancestor of the domestic cat, the African wildcat, adapted to the evolution of taking rodents as the staple food, so it still maintained the petite figure of its ancestors. Most cats nowadays are kept by humans. It's true that domestic cats can't even catch mice. They wait for their owners to feed them every day and are very picky about food. Most cats eat meat and cat food, but they are not interested in vegetarianism.
Lions, tigers, leopards and other big cats have always been the "kings of animals" as the top predators in nature, and they need bigger bodies to control the living environment in the wild. Cats are experts at catching mice at best, but now domestic cats are "hungry", so it is their lifestyle that determines their respective evolutionary direction.
All cats come from the same ancestor, but due to the adaptation of the environment, some cats become smaller and feed on smaller prey. Because they are cute, humans brought them back from the wild for adoption. Cats can't use the word domestication. Its wildness and "cat owner" status prove everything. From then on to now, these cats are called domestic cats. But there are still some wild cats that are too young to be domesticated.
Domestic cats usually come from wild cats similar in size to our domestic cats. Except for big cats, some cats may be much bigger than domestic cats, and domestic cats are not suitable for domestication. Our domestic cats have been kept for thousands of years, usually to control rodents, religious beliefs and personal preferences.
If domestic cats and cats such as liger come from the same ancestor, why are they usually smaller than leopards? I'm also confused. Maybe cats can't be completely tamed. Too big is dangerous for human beings. After all, cats are one of the most combative species in nature. They can kill animals three times bigger than themselves. Even a lynx that is not too big is a threat to people. In the heart of wild cats, humans will only choose domestic cats of different sizes, in order to make use of cats without threatening themselves.
Not only cats, but also domestic species will specialize in breeding to a certain size according to needs.
Compared with domestic cats, large mammals such as leopards and other small and medium-sized wild cats range from elephants and bison to mice and frogs. Different hunting objects and environments also promote the differentiation of cats. From * * * ancestors to big cat families of different sizes, it has experienced tens of millions of years of evolution and variation.
If you think that in the big family of cats, most of them are animals as big as lions and tigers. It is really natural that small animals, such as cats, are unique. Because in this large family of cats, no matter they are large, medium or small, they are extremely rich in size. We can look at this problem from the perspective of animal taxonomy:
According to the classical taxonomy, cats can be divided into three subfamilies-Cheetah subfamily, Cat subfamily and Leopard subfamily. Of course, in contemporary molecular systematics, Cheetah subfamily is classified as Cat subfamily.
In Leopard subfamily, there are two kinds: clouded leopard and leopard. The clouded leopard is actually a very small animal, so some people call it the smallest big cat (smaller than the bigger one among the small cats). Some people simply classify it as a small cat. They are generally only 70~ 1 10cm in size and weigh about 17~35kg, which is very small!
However, another genus of Leopard subfamily, leopard, has distinctive characteristics. They are the most famous animals. Leopard includes five categories-leopard, snow leopard, tiger, lion and jaguar. They are both the most powerful predators and the most familiar large carnivores.
The leopard is the biggest animal among cats, so it goes without saying how big it is. Take the Siberian tiger as an example: it is about 2.3 meters long and weighs about 250 kilograms. This is the real king of beasts!
Let's start with the subfamily Felinae, which is the largest branch of the feline family, with many members and different shapes. Of course, they are all small cats, but from the largest puma (American golden cat) to the smallest embroidered tabby cat, it is really colorful.
There are 30 species in the genus 1 1 in the subfamily Catinae, of which the most famous is definitely the cat. Cats are divided into jungle cats, wild cats, black-footed cats and Ou Lin cats. Our domestic cats and pet cats are domesticated by them.
In addition, there are other cats in this subfamily: rabbit, leopard, Karakal, serval cat, lynx, golden cat, striped cat, tiger cat, cheetah, African golden cat and American golden cat.
In fact, except cheetahs, golden cats and other animals, they are all in the middle reaches of cats. Animals such as rabbits and leopards are as big as domestic cats. And Karakal, Serval, Lynx, etc. , only bigger than domestic cats, and maybe even worse than Maine, the biggest pet cat.
Therefore, not all cats are big, but they are rich from small to large. Therefore, there is nothing to worry about the small size of cats, but it is the result of the right time, right place and evolutionary differentiation.
Most people think of cats in MengMeng when they say cats. In fact, cats also have larger fierce animals, such as tigers, lions and leopards. As a cat, why are cats so different from other cats in size?
The ancestors of cats are all the same, but different kinds of cats may be caused by crustal movement or climate change or different migration routes. Because of adapting to the environment and other reasons, there will be different sizes of bodies. Cats are mostly raised by humans or eat mice and birds for a living. They don't need to be too big.
So in natural evolution, the size will be smaller. Tigers, leopards and other cats generally live in the depths of forests or grasslands, and need to prey on some larger animals as food, such as zebras and deer, so they need larger bodies to meet the adaptation to the environment.
Therefore, the cat's body shape can be said to be the performance of survival of the fittest and the result of natural selection.