Cats

The cat (or domestic cat, house cat) is a small carnivorous mammal and a subspecies of the wild cat. more...

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The cat is a skilled predator and intelligent animal, known to hunt over 1,000 species for food, and capable of being trained (and learning by itself) to obey simple commands and manipulate simple mechanisms (see cat intelligence). It has lived in close association with humans for 3,500 to 9,500 years, figuring prominently in the mythology and legends of several cultures.

Cats come in dozens of breeds and a variety of colours. Hairless and tailless breeds have been developed from naturally occurring mutations. Cats use more than one hundred vocalizations and types of body language for communication, including mewing ("meow" or "miaou"), purring, hissing, growling, chirping, clicking, and grunting. Like horses and other domesticated animals, cats can sometimes become feral, living effectively in the wild. Feral cats will often form small feral cat colonies. Animal welfare organizations note that few abandoned cats are able to survive long enough to become feral, most being killed by vehicles, or succumbing to starvation, predators, exposure, or disease.

Legends and myths about the cat exist in many cultures, from the ancient Egyptians and Chinese to the Vikings. They have been both revered and vilified by different cultures.

The trinomial name of the domestic cat is Felis silvestris catus; its closest pre-domesticated ancestor is believed to be the African wild cat, Felis silvestris lybica.

Nomenclature

A group of cats is referred to as a clowder, a male cat is called a tom, and a female is called a queen. The male progenitor of a cat, especially a pedigreed cat, is its sire, and its female progenitor is its dam. An immature cat is called a kitten (which is also an alternative name for young rats, rabbits, hedgehogs, beavers, squirrels and skunks). In medieval Britain, the word kitten was interchangeable with the word catling. A cat whose ancestry is formally registered is called a pedigreed cat, purebred cat, or a show cat (although not all show cats are pedigreed or purebred). In strict terms, a purebred cat is one whose ancestry contains only individuals of the same breed. A pedigreed cat is one whose ancestry is recorded, but may have ancestors of different breeds (almost exclusively new breeds; cat registries are very strict about which breeds can be mated together). Cats of mixed ancestry are referred to as domestic longhairs and domestic shorthairs or commonly as random-bred, moggies, mongrels, mutt-cats or alley cats. The ratio of pedigree/purebred cats to random-bred cats varies from country to country. However, generally speaking, purebreds are less than ten percent of the total feline population.

Read more at Wikipedia.org