Cats have a special bond with people, especially with women

Jennifer Viegas writes in Discovery News that there is a special bond between people (especially women) and their house cats. The cats attach to humans as social partners, not just as providers of food.

THE GIST

• Relationships between cats and their owners mirror human bonds, especially when the owner is a woman.
• Cats hold some control over when they are fed and handled, functioning very similar to human children in some households.
• While the age, sex and personality of owners affect these relationships, the sex of the cat doesn't seem to matter.

---

The bond between cats and their owners turns out to be far more intense than imagined, especially for cat aficionado women and their affection reciprocating felines, suggests a new study.

This theory would seem to suggest that the practice of adopting cats as pets probably was a result of the earlier human association with domesticated wolves. The association with wolves had a very practical effect of making humans better hunters. Cats were less clearly useful, but required that agriculture develop. Only after agriculture developed was the use of cats to protect stored crops from rats important. The adoption of cats, then, would be useful in the female practice of farming and storing the food. This might explain why men tend to be more social with dogs (hunting) while women seem to be more social with cats (farming.)

Cats attach to humans, and particularly women, as social partners, and it's not just for the sake of obtaining food, according to the new research, which has been accepted for publication in the journal Behavioural Processes.

The study is the first to show in detail that the dynamics underlying cat-human relationships are nearly identical to human-only bonds, with cats sometimes even becoming a furry "child" in nurturing homes.

[...]

"Food is often used as a token of affection, and the ways that cats and humans relate to food are similar in nature to the interactions seen between the human caregiver and the pre-verbal infant," co-author Jon Day, a Waltham Centre for Pet Nutrition researcher, told Discovery News. "Both cat and human infant are, at least in part, in control of when and what they are fed!"

For the study, led by Kurt Kotrschal of the Konrad Lorenz Research Station and the University of Vienna, the researchers videotaped and later analyzed interactions between 41 cats and their owners over lengthy four-part periods. Each and every behavior of both the cat and owner was noted. Owner and cat personalities were also assessed in a separate test. For the cat assessment, the authors placed a stuffed owl toy with large glass eyes on a floor so the feline would encounter it by surprise.

The researchers determined that cats and their owners strongly influenced each other, such that they were each often controlling the other's behaviors. Extroverted women with young, active cats enjoyed the greatest synchronicity, with cats in these relationships only having to use subtle cues, such as a single upright tail move, to signal desire for friendly contact.

[...]

While cats have plenty of male admirers, and vice versa, this study and others reveal that women tend to interact with their cats -- be they male or female felines -- more than men do.

"In response, the cats approach female owners more frequently, and initiate contact more frequently (such as jumping on laps) than they do with male owners," co-author Manuela Wedl of the University of Vienna told Discovery News, adding that "female owners have more intense relationships with their cats than do male owners."

Cats also seem to remember kindness and return the favors later. If owners comply with their feline's wishes to interact, then the cat will often comply with the owner's wishes at other times. The cat may also "have an edge in this negotiation," since owners are usually already motivated to establish social contact. So cats really are social animals and not solitary parasitic denizens in our human households. My old joke that our cat rules the household with an iron paw -- it's true!

For more information on cats, see my earlier blog post Where do cats come from?

See also A History of the Domestic Cat.

---

Addendum 11:38 AM CST

An earlier Discovery News article entitled Pets Vital to Human Evolution presents the theory that the evolution of human beings was strongly aided by the unusual practice of humans taking in and adopting animals.

Dogs, cats, cows and other domesticated animals played a key role in human evolution, according to a theory being published by paleoanthropologist Pat Shipman of Penn State University.

The uniquely human habit of taking in and employing animals -- even competitors like wolves -- spurred on human tool-making and language, which have both driven humanity's success, Shipman says.

"Wherever you go in the world, whatever ecosystem, whatever culture, people live with animals," Shipman told Discovery News.

For early humans, taking in and caring for animals would seem like a poor strategy for survival. "On the face of it, you are wasting your resources. So this is a very weird behavior," Shipman said.

But it's not so weird in the context something else humans were doing about 2.6 million years ago: switching from a mostly vegetarian diet to one rich in meat. This happened because humans invented stone hunting tools that enabled them to compete with other top predators. Quite a rapid and bizarre switch for any animal, Shipman said.

"We shortcut the evolutionary process," said Shipman, who published her ideas in the latest issue of Current Anthropology and in an upcoming book. "We don't have the equipment to be carnivores."

So we invented the equipment, learned how to track and kill, and eventually took in animals who also knew how to hunt -- like wolves and other canines. Others, like goats, cows and horses, provided milk, hair and, finally, hides and meat.

Managing all of these animals -- or just tracking them -- requires technology, knowledge and ways to preserves and convey information. So languages had to develop and evolve to meet the challenges.

Tracking game has even been argued to be the origin of scientific inquiry, said Peter Richerson, professor emeritus in the Department of Environmental Science and Policy at the University of California, Davis.

One of the signs that this happened is in petroglyphs and other rock art left by ancient peoples. At first they were abstract, geometric patterns that are impossible to decipher. Then they converge on one subject: animals.

"Think what isn't there: people, landscapes, fruit and edible plants," said Shipman. This implies that animals and information about animals was of great importance."Think what isn't there: people, landscapes, fruit and edible plants," said Shipman. This implies that animals and information about animals was of great importance.

This theory would seem to suggest that the practice of adopting cats as pets probably was a result of the earlier human association with domesticated wolves. The association with wolves had a very practical effect of making humans better hunters. Cats were less clearly useful, but required that agriculture develop. Only after agriculture developed was the use of cats to protect stored crops from rats important. The adoption of cats, then, would be useful in the female practice of farming and storing the food. This might explain why men tend to be more social with dogs (hunting) while women are most social with cats (farming.)

---

Addendum 03/11/2011 4:23 PM CST
This is also quite interesting. National Geographic has a video on the development of cats.

I found the video in a link from an AP article on cats. Here is a very interesting part of that AP article:

Dr. Leslie Lyons leads a research team studying the genetics of the domestic cat at the University of California, Davis School of Veterinary Medicine. In the interview excerpted here, she explores the origins and domestication of the house cat:

AP: Feline geneticists say cats "domesticated themselves." What does that mean?

Lyons: We say cats adapted themselves to us rather than the other way around. As humans became farmers, we started a civilization. And civilization has grain stores and refuse piles, two things that draw rodents. Cats started coming closer to households to eat the rodents, filling the niche that humans developed. Cats were the first to come close to humans. We tolerated them because they ate the rodents, and cats tolerated humans because we provided food.

Q: How is this different from the domestication of dogs?

A: Dogs were domesticated much longer ago when we were hunter-gatherers. Unlike cats, we actively domesticated them. Probably we took wolf cubs and tried to tame them, raised them to be companions and to use for protection. Horses are like that too, we had to go out and capture and tame them before we could use them.

I'm not sure that humans actually domesticated wolves. One story I have heard is that wolves began to come close to human encampments in order to eat from the trash found there. Wolves who had a natural tolerance for association with humans came in closer and closer so they ate better and survived better than did those wolves who ran whenever a human came into sight.

That would suggest to me that east Asian wolves became dogs by domesticating themselves, and humans began to care for their puppies. It intrigues me, though, that in both cases the present dogs and cats exist because as humans began farming they created ecological niches for dogs and cats to fill.

I guess I should look at the history of domesticating chickens, goats, cattle, sheep and llamas also.

What make humans able to control the world? Culture.

The human species is unique. Humans are a predator par excellence. No other species existing can match humans. So what makes humans special? It's human culture. Human culture is something no other species known possesses.

So compare Humanity the most successful predators in existence. Compare humanity to the most successful land predator ever - Cats:

Saturday, January 07, 2006
Where did cats come from?
The NYTimes has a fascinating science article that describes the family tree and prehistoric migrations of cats.

January 6, 2006
DNA Offers New Insight Concerning Cat Evolution
By NICHOLAS WADE

Researchers have gained a major insight into the evolution of cats by showing how they migrated to new continents and developed new species as sea levels rose and fell.

About nine million years ago - two million years after the cat family first appeared in Asia - these successful predators invaded North America by crossing the Beringian land bridge connecting Siberia and Alaska, a team of geneticists writes in the journal Science today.

Later, several American cat lineages returned to Asia. With each migration, evolutionary forces morphed the pantherlike patriarch of all cats into a rainbow of species, from ocelots and lynxes to leopards, lions and the lineage that led to the most successful cat of all, even though it has mostly forsaken its predatory heritage: the cat that has induced people to pay for its board and lodging in return for frugal displays of affection.

This new history of the family, known as Felidae, is based on DNA analyses of the 37 living species performed by Warren E. Johnson and Stephen J. O'Brien of the National Cancer Institute and colleagues elsewhere.

Before DNA, taxonomists had considerable difficulty in classifying the cat family. The fossil record was sparse and many of the skulls lacked distinctiveness. One scheme divided the family into Big Cats and Little Cats. Then, in 1997, Dr. Johnson and Dr. O'Brien said they thought most living cats fell into one of eight lineages, based on the genetic element known as mitochondrial DNA.

Having made further DNA analyses, the researchers have drawn a full family tree that assigns every cat species to one of the lineages. They have also integrated their tree, which is based solely on changes in DNA, with the fossil record. The fossils, which are securely dated, allow dates to be assigned to each fork in the genetic family tree.

Knowing when each species came into existence, the Johnson-O'Brien team has been able to reconstruct a series of at least 10 intercontinental migrations by which cats colonized the world. The cheetah, for instance, now found in Africa, belongs to a lineage that originated in North America and some three million years ago migrated back across the Bering land bridge to Asia and then Africa.

Dr. O'Brien said the cats were very successful predators, second only to humans, and quickly explored new territories as opportunity arose. Sea levels were low from 11 million to 6 million years ago, enabling the first modern cats, in paleontologists' perspective (saber-tooth tigers are ancient cats), to spread from Asia west into Africa, creating the caracal lineage, and east into North America, generating the ocelot, lynx and puma lineages.

The leopard lineage appeared around 6.5 million years ago in Asia. The youngest of the eight lineages, which led eventually to the domestic cat, emerged some 6.2 million years ago in Asia and Africa, either from ancestors that had never left Asia or more probably from North American cats that had trekked back across the Bering land bridge.

Sea levels then rose, confining each cat species to its own continent, but sank again some three million years ago, allowing a second round of cat migrations. It was at this time that the ancestors of the cheetah and the Eurasian lynxes colonized the Old World from the New.

Chris Wozencraft, an authority on the classification of carnivorous mammals, said the new cat family tree generally agreed with one that he had just published in Mammal Species of the World, a standard reference. Dr. Wozencraft, a taxonomist at Bethel College in Indiana, based his classification on fossil and zoological information, as well as on DNA data already published by Dr. O'Brien's laboratory.

Cat fossils are very hard to tell apart, because they differ mostly just in size, and the DNA data emerging over the last decade has helped bring the field from confusion to consensus, Dr. Wozencraft said.

Despite their evolutionary success, most of the large cats are in peril because their broad hunting ranges have brought them into collision with people. "With the exception of the house cat and a few other small cat species, nearly every one of the 37 species is considered endangered or threatened," Dr. Johnson and Dr. O'Brien write in the current Annual Review of Genomics and Human Genetics.

Fewer than 15,000 tigers, cheetahs and snow leopards remain in the wild, they estimate, and pumas and jaguar populations have been reduced to about 50,000 each.

It is especially interesting that the DNA evidence ties back very closely to the limited fossil evidence, and corresponds to the history of the rise and fall of oceans that geologists have determined.

This is a story which could never be told by the anti-evolutionists. Of course, it also confirms my suspicion that house cats are the dominant species on earth. They just let us humans THINK we dominate the world, as we work to provide food and shelter for the cats.

Labels: Cats, DNA, Evolution, Wade
posted by Richard @ 5:25 PM
2 Comments:

*

At 9/11/2010 9:45 PM, Blogger Richard said…

Cats are perhaps the most successful land predator that exist today. They may rank up with sharks. But they still fill a single evolutionary niche. Humans are also very highly successful predators, but there is a qualitative difference between cats or sharks as predators and humans as predators.

The difference between cats and humans is that humans are not just superb predators in their evolutionary niche. Humans have developed the tool of culture which allows them to take control of the environment in which they exist and change it to suit themselves. Cats exist in their niche where it exists. Humans change the environment to create a niche for themselves when they want to. No other species exists in as many diverse environments as humans do.

It is this ability to change the environment to suit humans that makes humans so responsible for their own effects on the environment. That godlike power that humans wield demands a similarly godlike level of responsibility that is demanded of no other species. No other species can create as much damage to the environment as humans can, and no other species can be aware of the damage they are doing.

*

At 9/11/2010 10:15 PM, Blogger Richard said…

I guess I was wrong when I wrote "They just let us humans THINK we dominate the world." What has happened is that cats are the most successful predator when considering the rules of the game of land based predation. Humans, however, are the first species which ever developed the capability of changing the rules of the game.

The key to that ability to change the rules of the game is culture. Culture is based on complex abstract language (something which is inherited genetically by humans) and the resulting social creativity. So does culture dominate humans? No it doesn't.

Individuals are the decision-making units, but the tool of culture and shared knowledge is something no other species has. Humans, however, have a genetic ability to acquire the kinds of language that permit access to human culture.

Individual humans are, as a result, the creation of the culture. They make the decisions, but they are individual personalities created by the cultures they are embedded inside. (See the book "Mind, Self and Society" by George Herbert Mead.)

Cats and sharks do not have the benefits provided by a culture. No other species existing does. Nor does any other species have the ability to "plug into" the tool of culture and thus change the environment around them in controllable ways. (Red tides do not have the ability to stop destroying the environment in which they exist.)

Among other things, it should be quite clear that libertarian economics totally fails to consider this aspect of the environment or of human existence.