From: jwkenne@attglobal.net
On 2015-06-18 01:37:40 +0000, William Vetter said:
> Will in New Haven wrote:
>> 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,
>
> Well, in those days they tried ferrets and weasels, but these were hard
> to domesticate, and were most effective for rodents burrowed
> underground -- not infesting human habitations.
>
>> who are also cat-killers if not taught different, were far in the
>> future, so the hunting was good.
>
> What I was refering to above, is that when cats traveled to Grecian
> colonies on boats, they found no big granaries for them to guard, and
> no temples equipped with priests to feed them fish from the Nile.
>>
>> And the scant genetic evidence so far places the cat as descending from
>> wildcats to the east of Egypt
>
> That is felis lybica, the Libyan wildcat, which was tawny and spotted,
> with a black tip on its tail (as drawn on papyrii), 2X as large as the
> modern domestic cat. The modern ones are tawny, and more faintly
> spotted. Feral kitties around cities in Egypt are sometimes spotted.
> The breed Egyptian Mau is said to have derived from a Cairo street cat,
> but it doesn't really look like the cats in the papyrii.
>
>> , in Israel and Syria,
>
> Not then.
>
>> although the same species can be found in Egypt,
>
> Yes.
>
>> the rest of Africa
>
> That is the African wildcat, another species.
>
>> and in Europe.
>
> That is felis sylvestris, the European wildcat, another species, which
> looks like a gray tabby cat, but at least 2X as big, which interbred
> with the domesticated cats from Egypt and probably gave kitties the
> tabby stripes. Because they interbreed with feral cats so easily,
> there are very few pureblooded European wildcats today.
You're out of date. Felis sylvestris is the old-world wildcat in
general. The European wildcat is Felis sylvestris sylvestris. Felis
sylvestris lybica, the African wildcat (with a range extending into the
near east and southern Europe) is the immediate ancestor of the
domestic cat. Felis sylvestris has quite a few other subspecies.
--
John W Kennedy
"I want everybody to be smart. As smart as they can be. A world of
ignorant people is too dangerous to live in."
-- Garson Kanin. "Born Yesterday"
--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)
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