Most modern domestic cats are descended from the African wildcat (Felis sylvestris lybica). However, a new study published in bioRxiv finds that in China, these felines may have been preceded by another species – the leopard cat (Prionailurus bengalensis).
Cats (Felis domesticus) were domesticated as early as 9,500 years ago – a grave in Cyprus dating to 7,500 BCE (Before the Common Era) contained a cat buried with its owner. But the cats we know today did not reach China until 730 CE (Common Era), according to radiocarbon analysis.
Before that point, another feline prowled early Chinese settlements. The leopard cat, a small feline that ranges across Asia, seems to have been the first to integrate into human life in China.
Evidence of leopard cats
Like their African relatives, leopard cats were drawn by the small rodents that swarmed to the easy food provided by agricultural activities.
Isotopic analysis has verified their rodent diet – and even suggested that some ate grain. The researchers analysed seven sets of feline remains from sites across China. All but one was determined to belong to a leopard cat. The seventh belonged to an Asiatic wildcat (F. ornata).
The earliest leopard cat specimen, from Quanhucun in northern China, dates to 5,400 years ago. The latest dates to 150 CE. Several artifacts depict leopard cats, including a decorative bowl excavated from the Mawangdui Han Tomb dating to 168 BCE. These images indicate that leopard cats were part of everyday life in some Chinese settlements.
"We proved that the leopard cat was living with the Chinese in ancient times, not only in that village 5,400 years ago, but over a period of 3,500 years,” says co-author Shu-Jin Luo, a conservation biologist at Peking University in Beijing.
There is a gap of approximately 600 years between the last known remains of leopard cats and the first known remains of domestic cats. The researchers hypothesise that the absence of cat remains during this period may have been due to climatic shifts and social upheaval – these circumstances may have created conditions hostile to commensal species.
“Following the Han Dynasty, the human population was down and climate change led to agricultural breakdown,” Luo says.
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The appearance of domestic cats does not overlap with the presence of leopard cats and no apparent hybrids have been detected – though the two species have been crossed in modern times to produce the spotted Bengal breed. Modern domestic cats are thought to have arrived from Europe via trade routes such as the Silk Road.
Once they arrived, they seem to have entirely displaced leopard cats in Chinese civilisation. The authors note that the rise of poultry farming may have led humans to discourage the presence of leopard cats as well. Leopard cats are known predators of poultry – in 2013, a leopard cat was finally captured by a Malaysian farmer after killing 70 of his chickens.
"We don't know how close they eventually became,” Luo says. "We don’t call them domesticated leopard cats – it was more like a case of failed domestication.”
Main image: Leopard cat, Prionailurus bengalensis/Getty
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