Hannah L. Lockwood, Maren Huck “A Global Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis of Methods Used to Evaluate Predation and Diet of Domestic Cats (Felis catus)” Ecology and Evolution 15(4). (April 2025) https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/ece3.71349
Watari Y, Matsuyama Y, Tokuyoshi M, Nose T, Hayama H, Kawakami K, Oka N (2025) Unexpectedly early and drastic dietary shift of feral cats to seabirds: Evidence from fecal samples of cats captured during the transition to the breeding season of the streaked shearwater on Mikura-shima Island, Japan. Mammal Study 50.
Invasive cat predation on island-breeding seabirds is a well-known example of impacts reducing insular biodiversity. The affected islands show drastic seasonal changes in primary prey for cats (i.e., seabirds), yet no studies have detected the timing of cats’ dietary shift to seabirds. Using camera trapping, opportunistic information gathering, and fecal analysis of cats captured during the transition season between the wintering and breeding seasons of the streaked shearwaters on Mikura-shima Island, we found that cats began unexpectedly preying on the shearwaters in the middle winter when the shearwaters ever reported to stay in the wintering waters, which was also earlier than the period shown by any other monitoring records in this study. We updated our estimate to 330 shearwaters annually killed by an average cat on the island. Though the cat population is yet unknown, at least 34 980 shearwaters will be killed annually, assuming the results of our recent cat trapping as the minimum population. In addition, three landbird species—Izu thrush, Japanese wood pigeon, and Japanese scops-owl—were detected in the cat feces. Mikura-shima Island lacks management by the relevant governments to solve the cat issue. Urgent action is needed from these administrations.
The earliest cats in human settlements in China were not domestic cats (Felis catus), but native leopard cats (Prionailurus bengalensis).
To trace when and how domestic cats arrived in East Asia, we analyzed
22 feline bones from 14 sites across China spanning 5,000 years. Nuclear
and mitochondrial genomes revealed that leopard cats began occupying
anthropogenic scenes around 5,400 years ago and last appeared in 150 CE.
Following several centuries’ gap of archeological feline remains, the
first known domestic cat (706–883 CE) in China was identified in Shaanxi
during the Tang Dynasty. Genomic analysis suggested a white or
partially white coat and a link to a contemporaneous domestic cat from
Kazakhstan, indicating a likely dispersal route via the Silk Road. The
two felids once independently occupied ancient anthropogenic
environments in China but followed divergent paths and reached different
destinations in human-animal interactions.
Haruda, A., Ventresca Miller, A.R., Paijmans, J.L.A. et al. The earliest domestic cat on the Silk Road.
Sci Rep10, 11241 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-020-67798-6
Abstract
We present the earliest evidence for domestic cat (Felis catus
L., 1758) from Kazakhstan, found as a well preserved skeleton with
extensive osteological pathologies dating to 775–940 cal CE from the
early medieval city of Dzhankent, Kazakhstan. This urban settlement was
located on the intersection of the northern Silk Road route which linked
the cities of Khorezm in the south to the trading settlements in the
Volga region to the north and was known in the tenth century CE as the
capital of the nomad Oghuz. The presence of this domestic cat, presented
here as an osteobiography using a combination of zooarchaeological,
genetic, and isotopic data, provides proxy evidence for a fundamental
shift in the nature of human-animal relationships within a previously
pastoral region. This illustrates the broader social, cultural, and
economic changes occurring within the context of rapid urbanisation
during the early medieval period along the Silk Road.
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