Compared to their wild ancestors, domestic cats are closest to lions that live in prides.
Getting a cat to do whatever you want is not easy. They always do things their own way. Any cat owner will agree. But why do these animals so insistently refuse to cooperate with both their own kind and with humans? Why do so many animals, both wild and domestic, don’t mind living in a team, but not the cat?
The existence of herds in the wild is very widespread. Birds flock in flocks, antelopes run in flocks. Predators also often hunt together. Even the relatives of domestic cats lions live in prides.
Species at risk of becoming prey to predators are grouped together for safety. “It’s called a distraction,” said biologist Craig Packer of the University of Minnesota in St. Paul, USA. “A predator can only catch one, and if you are hundreds, then the chance of being eaten drops to 1%. And when you are alone, you will be caught anyway, ”he explains.
Another advantage of living in a group is the so-called multi-eye effect – the larger the group of potential prey, the more likely they are to notice an approaching predator. “And the sooner you spot a predator, the more time you’ll have to avoid meeting it,” said Jens Krause of Humboldt University in Berlin.
However, it is not just a matter of avoiding predators. Animals living in a group do not have to travel long in search of a suitable partner, while for individuals traveling long distances, this can be quite a problem. When members of a group have offspring, they are raised by the whole team.
Herd existence also helps to save energy. Birds and fish move more efficiently in a community than individuals. Bats and emperor penguins will also confirm this – huddled together, it is much easier to keep warm and not freeze.
Given all these advantages, it seems strange that some animals avoid the company of their own species. As can be seen from the example of domestic cats, not everyone is attracted to living in a herd. For some animals
the benefits of being in
community just isn’t worth it
“There always comes a time when close proximity to other individuals leads to a reduction in the amount of food consumed,” says John Frixel, a biologist at the University of Guelph, Canada. In this case, a key factor is the availability of sufficient food, which in turn depends on how much food an animal needs. And cats are very demanding on this issue. For example, a leopard eats about 23 kg of meat every few days. As a rule, competition for food among feral cats is very high and therefore leopards prefer to live and hunt alone.
However, there is one exception to this rule – lions. Packer, who has studied African lions for nearly 50 years, says it is very important that these animals have their own territory. “They have to lead a social life in order to dominate their territory and drive out competitors. That way, the big herd wins, ”says Packer. This successful cohabitation is possible because one victim killed by a lion – wildebeest or zebra – is enough to feed several females and their young at once. “The size and availability of prey allows them to live in groups, but in reality they are encouraged to do so by the geographical nature of their environment, the savannah,” says Packer.
However, domestic cats are in a completely different situation, as they hunt mainly small animals.
“The last thing
the cat wants to see
when she caught a mouse,
is another animal nearby,
which would jeopardize her lunch, ”says Packer. These selfish motives are so deeply rooted in feline behavior that even domestication has failed to defeat the greatest love of these animals – loneliness.
All domestic cats are descended from Middle Eastern feral cats (Felis silvestris), or forest cats. People did not lure these first cats from the forest. The future pets came alone to the human stables, where many mice ate uncontrollably. After quickly ending the invasion, the cats laid the foundation for our current relationship with them.
Domestic cats are not completely antisocial, but their communication with each other and with their owners should be done only on their terms. “They have maintained a high degree of independence and spend time with us only when they wish,” said Dennis Turner, a felinologist and animal behaviorist at the Institute of Applied Ethology and Zoopsychology in Horgen, Switzerland. “Cats have developed many mechanisms to keep their distance. These mechanisms interfere with their herd existence, “said Daniel Mills, a professor of behavioral medicine at Lincoln University in the UK. An example of this is marking territory to avoid unwanted encounters with each other. bristles, and the nails appear from the soft paws.
In certain situations, it may seem that domestic cats still come to terms with living in groups. For example, in a rural area you may have a whole herd of cats living together in a barn. Frixel says this impression is misleading.
“These communities from
cats are fickle and
they are not really a group
he says. “They just share the territory in which they raise their offspring.”
Even in the face of extreme danger, which often forces animals to unite for their own protection, cats are unlikely to cooperate. “It’s just unusual behavior for them, even when there is a threat,” said Monique Udell, a biologist at the University of Oregon. Cats simply do not believe in numerical superiority.
All this explains why cats have earned a reputation as animals that cannot be forced to live in a group.
However, there is some evidence that cats’ contempt for collective life is beginning to wane. A 2014 study published in the Journal of Comparative Psychology examined the personality traits of domestic cats. When researchers compared domestic cats to four feral cats – Scottish feral cats, cloud leopards, snow leopards and African lions – domestic cats are most similar in nature to lions living in groups.
It should also be noted that domestic cats tolerate the company of others like themselves much better than their ancestors. Despite the fact that groups of cats living in stables are non-permanent communities, they still get along very well in such confined spaces.
In the Roman Colosseum, for example, about 200 cats live side by side, and on the Japanese island of Aoshima, the number of cats is six times greater than the number of people. Cooperation in such colonies may not be widespread, but this way of life is strikingly different from the loneliness chosen by their distant ancestors.
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