Purrfect - Garfield's family tree mapped out

By Jessica Friedrici Jan 7, 2006, 10:19 GMT

Bunso, a male Himalayan, stares while being judged at the World Cat Federation International Cat Show in Dubai, United Arab Emirates on Thursday, 10 November 2005. EPA/STEFAN ZAKLIN

Washington - To them, we might ever remain just a talking tin opener.

To us, they'll always be an exquisite mystery.

Now researchers have come a step closer in understanding the history of our soft-pawed, purring friends and their more vicious relatives like the clouded leopard, the flat-headed cat, the bobcat and the African lion.

Using DNA data, researchers have mapped out the family tree of all 37 living cat species and their ancestors, according to a study published in the journal Science Friday.

While cats can now be found on all continents except Antarctica, they first appeared in Asia around 11 million years ago, the researchers said. The study identified eight different branches of the cats' family tree and tracked down their exact composition and evolution.

As sea levels rose and fell, the predators undertook at least ten intercontinental migrations to their current homes across the globe, the study showed.

Early cats first roamed from Asia to Africa between 5.6 and 8.5 million years ago.

In a second wave of migration, the animals travelled from Asia across the Bering land bridge connecting Siberia and Alaska to North America. Among those migrants were the two youngest additions to the cat family - the subgroups of leopard cat and domestic cat.

After the arrival in America, a new cousin emerged who later travelled back to the land of his ancestors and beyond. The cheetah, the fastest land animal on earth, now at home in Africa and central Asia, descended from the North American puma lineage.

Today, the cheetah is classed as an endangered species with numbers going down from more than 100,000 at the dawn of the 20th century, to under 12,000 today, according to the World Wildlife Fund (WWF).

Only 36 species of wild cats remaining, says the World Conservation Union.

Of those, the largest one - the tiger - is at the greatest risk of extinction. Three of eight tiger subspecies have already perished in the last century and today only approximately 6,000 tigers still live in the wild, the WWF calculated.

The greatest threat to wild cats is the loss of habitat and the depletion of their natural prey, the WWF says. The organisation tries to save the big cats by establishing conservation areas in the wild and by eliminating trade in tiger parts and products.

The story of the domestic cat, however, has been much more successful - and equally intriguing.

The Egyptians were the first to bring cats into their homes about 4,000 years ago. They loved their pets so much that they mummified them, believing they would find their feline companions on the other side.

However, while their fates vary greatly, house cats and dangerous predators are not actually that different.

DNA analysis has allowed researchers to better differentiate between the different varieties of cats and their evolution.

But while the study brought more details on species with such exotic names as marbled cat serval, pallas cat and rusty spotted cat, a few questions remain.

The scientists could not figure what close cousin of our common house cat emerged first - the black-footed cat or the jungle cat.