Matter of fact, it's amazing domestic varieties have survived. For example, they still throw up hairballs and other assorted materials on the brand new carpet, always just missing the linoleum or hardwood by inches. They refuse to learn tricks, and even if you do manage to teach em one it will stop immediately when they realize we think they're doing it. They won't consciously fetch. All of this proves house cats owe their very existence to the female human species.
Some people claim they are still evolving, and swear to have seen "cabbits" and "squittens". We are familiar with a small herd of non-manx cats in our environs having only 'nubs' in place of regular tails. I don't know if that means anything.
Speaking of origins, a lot of words start with 'cat', such as caterwaul, cataclysm, catastrophe, catamaran, catatonic and catsup to name a few. 'Cat-house' even has the word separated out, for special gratitude I guess. We can only imagine how the word 'catapult' got its name.
I do like cats--sort of a love-hate relationship to be honest. Some cats are better than others. I'm also a dog person, but cats offer their own unique entertainment value. Here's a picture of one of ours. He seems to be evolving quite nicely...
Seriously speaking, the article brings to mind some evolutionary questions. For example, what was the predecessor to the first cat? Very few cat fossils have been located, much less a missing link. How did the common house cat get to be orders of magnitude smaller than its big cat patriarch? You don't see miniature elephants or giraffes, even at the Neverland ranch. Oh well, I'm sure an anthropologist would set me straight, I'm just too lazy to look anything up on this quiet Saturday night.
1 comment:
Ack? That brings to mind the images of Opus's little buddy, Bill.
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