A cat owner will tell you that cats are perfect because they love their cats. You would expect that. But when an evolutionary biologist says it, it has a different meaning. Anjali Goswami explains that cats as a whole have perfected who they are and what they do so well that they don't need to diversify or evolve. The only real diversity in cat species is size. A lion isn't much different from a house cat or an ocelot underneath the skin. Other types of animals diversify, like bears, which range from completely herbivorous (giant pandas) to completely carnivorous (polar bears) and everything in between. Meanwhile cats hunt whatever prey animal is becoming too abundant according to their size, from deer to mice. And they do it well.
Cats challenge standard biases in evolutionary biology. People have said to me, “What about bats? What about rodents? These groups have so many species doing all kinds of things.” And I’m like, “Yeah, because they suck.” They haven’t figured out how to do anything well, so they keep trying different things.
Goswami has plenty more to say about how cats have perfected the art of being cats at Scientific American. -via Strange Company
(Image credit: Shagil Kannur)
