From: mdhangton@gmail.com   
      
   John W Kennedy wrote:   
   > On 2015-06-15 17:45:35 +0000, William Vetter said:   
   >   
   >> Will in New Haven wrote:   
   >>> On Sunday, June 14, 2015 at 8:27:59 PM UTC-4, William Vetter wrote:   
   >>>> Dorothy J Heydt wrote:   
   >>>>> In article ,   
   >>>>> William Vetter   wrote:   
   >>>>>> Michael R N Dolbear wrote:   
   >>>>>>> "Dorothy J Heydt"  wrote   
   >>>>>>>   
   >>>>>>>> Is someone writing about the vibrissae of an aileuromorph?   
   >>>>>>>> Please send a link, if so.   
   >>>>>>>   
   >>>>>>> The best Amazon can find is the facsimile reprint "The Functions Of   
   >>>>>>> The Vibrissae In The Behavior Of The White Rat (1912) "   
   >>>>>>>   
   >>>>>>> All listed seem to be non-fiction.   
   >>>>>>   
   >>>>>> If you cut the rat's whiskers off, he can't find his way through a   
   >>>>>> maze.   
   >>>>>>   
   >>>>>> If you cut the cat's whiskers off, he can't locate a victim's neck in   
   >>>>>> the dark to kill it with a bite.   
   >>>>>>   
   >>>>>> That is the importance of the vibrissae, whiskers that function as   
   >>>>>> sensory organs.   
   >>>>>>   
   >>>>>> Cats score very badly in maze work anyhow.  Maze work is how many   
   >>>>>> scientists define the intelligence of animals.   
   >>>>>   
   >>>>> That, and being willing to understand/carry out the command of   
   >>>>> humans.  This is why some humans think dogs are more intelligent   
   >>>>> than cats.  The dog is a pack animal and wants to cooperate with   
   >>>>> whoever it thinks its pack leader is.  The cat is less social,   
   >>>>> more independent, and while it can become very fond of its human,   
   >>>>> this takes time.  Thus, the cat may understand perfectly what you   
   >>>>> want it to do, but just can't be bothered; so you'll never know   
   >>>>> if it understood you or not.   
   >>>>   
   >>>> I've been reading some books by Roger Tabor.  The phrase he uses is that   
   >>>> the cat is "not particularly hierarchical."  And in terms of hunting   
   >>>> behavior, the dog is "a cog in the machine," and the cat "_is_ the   
   >>>> machine."   
   >>>>   
   >>>> Well...the way I look at it is the cat, in that he is an independent   
   >>>> hunter, is self-employed, and really doesn't get the concept of a boss.   
   >>>> Cats may also operate as scavengers, although their dentition isn't   
   >>>> specialized for that such as, for example, the hyena.   
   >>>   
   >>> Nitpick: The hyena, if were are talking about the spotted Hyena, kills   
   >>> much more of its food than it scavenges. And much of its scavenging   
   >>> consists of taking kills away from lions in battle, not of waiting for the   
   >>> lions to finish eating, so their teeth are just fine for things other than   
   >>> scavenging.   
   >> Kitties don't have the great molars of the hyena for crushing bone; only   
   >> for tilting their heads sideways and chopping meat, so the paleontologist   
   >> will say the kitty is not meant to be a scavenger.  Nevertheless, we   
   >> presume the kitties first became village cats in settlements around the   
   >> Mediterranean by hitting the garbage dump.  Such was the early relation of   
   >> kitties with humanity, outside of Egyptian religion.  We presume.   
   >   
   > The last I heard, perhaps as early as 10,000 BC, a small number of cats (five   
   > or six females and an unknown number of males) realized that human neolithic   
   > grain stores attracted mice, etc., and that Egyptian cat-worship was an   
   > effect, not a cause.   
   >   
   I'm not sure what you're getting at.   
      
   Um, cats spread about the Mediterranean apparently by boat, to Greece   
   and the Greek colonies, where they did't seem to have had a close   
   relationship with humans, by about 600BC, even to Massilia and from   
   thence into Gaul, with the exception of a cat that was found buried   
   among human graves in Cyprus.  They start to appear in art a few   
   hundred years later.  These cats had the Felis Lybica spot pattern,   
   rather than tabby stripes, because that's what we see in Pompeian   
   mosaics.  In the first century BC, cats are depicted in Roman funeral   
   stelles, which clearly have the pet relationship similar to what we   
   have today.  The religion that involved cats never spread much outside   
   Egypt until after Rome took control of Ptolemaic Egypt.   
      
   >>> When we feed   
   >>> them, they are operating as scavengers.  When their main procurement of   
   >>> food is this way, and food is plentiful, they form colonies, and, in feral   
   >>> colonies, adult cats interact socially as kittens do in the nest, grooming   
   >>> one another in the regions of their bodies they can't reach, nursing their   
   >>> neighbors' kittens, etc.  Some cats, especially large males, can show   
   >>> dominance behavior, but the cats in these colonies behave as colleagues,   
   >>> rather than employees of the leader.   
   >>>   
   >>> That's how I see their behavior toward their humans. Surely you've   
   >>> encountered personnel managers who believe an employee who doesn't show   
   >>> ritual submission is up to something, and others who want to relate to   
   >>> their subordinates as junior colleagues.  Some types of employees will   
   >>> succeed under either; and for an employee ill-suited to the type of boss   
   >>> will fail disastrously.   
   >>>>   
   >>>> The differences between dogs and cats tells us something about the   
   >>>> differences between dog people and cat people.   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)