New facts about cats
From the DNA analysis, the UC Davis researchers found that:
- Cats were genetically clustered in four groups that corresponded with the regions of Europe, the Mediterranean basin, east Africa and Asia.
- Randomly bred cats in the Americas were genetically similar to randomly bred cats from Western Europe.
- The Maine coone and American shorthair — two breeds that originated in the United States — were genetically similar to the seven Western European breeds. This suggests that cats brought to the New World by European settlers have not had sufficient time to develop significant genetic differentiation from their Western European ancestors.
- Genetic diversity remained surprisingly broad among cats from various parts of the world. However the data indicated that there was some loss of diversity associated even with the long-term development of foundation cat breeds — those breeds that provided the genetic basis from which modern pure breeds were developed.
The study yielded many interesting breed-specific findings:
- The Persian breed, perhaps the oldest recognized pure breed, was not genetically associated with randomly bred cat populations from the Near East, but rather was more closely associated with randomly bred cats of Western Europe.
- Of the Asian cat breeds, only the Japanese bobtail was genetically clustered with Western cats, although it did retain some Asian influence.
- Cats from the Mediterranean region were found to be genetically uniform, perhaps a result of the constant movement of ships and caravans during the early era of the cat’s domestication, the researchers suggested.
— Pat Bailey