From: willreich_77@yahoo.com
On Monday, June 15, 2015 at 1:45:46 PM UTC-4, William Vetter wrote:
> 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.
There's a distinction between stealing kills and scavenging. When hyenas steal
a kill from lions, or vice versa, there is still meat on it. Being able to
crush the bones is useful but not necessary. The little wildcat ancestor of
our cats could not steal
kills very often.
> 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.
I think it was the rodents around the granary. There were undoubtedly dogs
around but terriers specialized for killing rodents, who are also cat-killers
if not taught different, were far in the future, so the hunting was good.
And the scant genetic evidence so far places the cat as descending from
wildcats to the east of Egypt, in Israel and Syria, although the same species
can be found in Egypt, the rest of Africa and in Europe.
--
Will in New Haven
--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)
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