Felis catus
Linnaeus, 1758 · speciesAt a glance
Sources11 archives
Databases and archives Felis catus's data was compiled from.
WikipediaWikimedia Foundation22 languages↗
Animal Diversity WebUniv. of Michigan MZspecies account↗
BioWikiNetmultilingual Wikipediamultilingual↗
GBIFGlobal Biodiversity Information Facility184 352 records↗
ENAEuropean Nucleotide Archive · EMBL-EBI624 eDNA detections↗
BOLD SystemsCentre for Biodiversity Genomics178 specimens↗
GoaTGenomes on a Tree · Sangergenome & karyotype↗
NCBIUS National Library of Medicinegenome & karyotype↗
Tree of SexTree of Sex Consortiumgenome & karyotype↗
Paleobiology DatabasePBDB consortiumfossil record↗
GLoBIGlobal Biotic Interactionsbiotic interactions↗Every layer below draws on the sources above — open one to explore it, or use ← → to move between tabs.
The cat (Felis catus) is a domestic species of small carnivorous mammal. It is the only domesticated species in the family Felidae and is often referred to as the domestic cat to distinguish it from the wild members of the family. A cat can either be a house cat, a farm cat or a feral cat; the latter ranges freely and avoids human contact. Domestic cats are valued by humans for companionship and their ability to kill rodents. About 60 cat breeds are recognized by various cat registries. The cat is similar in anatomy to the other felid species: it has a strong flexible body, quick reflexes, sharp teeth and retractable claws adapted to killing small prey. Its night vision and sense of smell are well developed. Cat communication includes vocalizations like meowing, purring, trilling, hissing, growling and grunting as well as cat-specific body language. A predator that is most active at dawn and dusk (crepuscular), the cat is a solitary hunter but a social species. It can hear sounds too faint or too high in frequency for human ears, such as those made by mice and other small mammals. Cats also secrete and perceive pheromones. Female domestic cats can have kittens from spring to late autumn, with litter sizes often ranging from two to five kittens. Domestic cats are bred and shown at events as registered pedigreed cats, a hobby known as cat fancy. Population control of cats may be effected by spaying and neutering, but their proliferation and the abandonment of pets has resulted in large numbers of feral cats worldwide, contributing to the extinction of entire bird, mammal, and reptile species. It was long thought that cat domestication began in ancient Egypt, where cats were venerated from around 3100 BC, but recent advances in archaeology and genetics have shown that their domestication occurred in Western Asia around 7500 BC. there were an estimated 220 million owned and 480 million stray cats in the world. the domestic cat was the second most popular pet in the United States, with 95.6 million cats owned and around 42 million households own at least one cat. In the United Kingdom, 26% of adults have a cat with an estimated population of 10.9 million pet cats
No narrative description available for this taxon yet.
Size & morphology2
Life cycle & reproduction8
Diet & foraging1
Habitat & environment1
Physiology & chemistry1
Other traits5
A DNA barcode is a short, standardised stretch of genes that works like a fingerprint — enough to tell one species from another. Below is the molecular trace Felis catus has left across the world's sequence archives.
At a glance
★ the standard DNA barcode for this group — the short region actually read to tell this species apart. The rest are extra genes sequenced along the way.
Besides the big genome in the nucleus, cells carry a small, circular loop of DNA inside the cell's energy factories — the mitochondria. It is inherited almost only from the mother and is a leftover from ancient bacteria that moved into the cell. The mitochondrial markers above (ND*, COX, CYTB…) are read from exactly this loop. Outer ring = one strand, inner ring = the other.
The complete instruction manual Felis catus carries — its genome. We read it from three angles — how big it is, how the DNA is packed into chromosomes, and how completely it has been sequenced — and explain how to read each value as you go.
Genome sizehow big the whole instruction manual is
Measured in base pairs (bp) — the individual letters of DNA (human ≈ 3.2 Gb, a bacterium a few million). The chart places this genome on a logarithmic scale — each step to the right is ten times bigger — among reference organisms. Across species a bigger genome loosely tracks with larger cells, slower growth and lower-energy lifestyles (powered flight favours small genomes) — yet it does not imply more genes or a more advanced organism (the long-standing C-value paradox).
Chromosomes & ploidyhow the DNA is packaged
2n is the full chromosome count in a normal body cell; n is a gamete (egg or sperm), which carries half. Ploidy is how many complete chromosome sets each cell holds — 2× (diploid) is typical for animals, while higher levels (polyploidy) are common in plants. Click any value below to see the underlying records and sources.
2n 386×GoaT · Animal Chromosome Counts Database · GoaT · Tree of Sex Database · GoaT · Animal Genome Size Database +1
Sequencing statusassembly quality — how far to trust these numbers
Assembly level tells you how finished the sequence is — from fragmented contigs, through scaffolds, up to a full chromosome-level assembly. BUSCO % estimates completeness: the share of genes expected to be present that were actually found. These describe the data quality, not the organism.
How far back this lineage goes — and how we know. Everything here is measured in Ma, short for “mega-annum”: millions of years ago. The chart reads left to right like a calendar of the Earth, from the deep past on the left to today at the right edgetop to bottom like a core drilled through the Earth, from the deep past at the top down to today at the bottom.
At a glance
When this lineage existed
How to read this: the coloured strip along the bottomdown the left is the geological calendar — the standard epochs (Pliocene, Pleistocene…) every museum uses, shown so you can see which chapter of Earth's history this lineage lived in. This lineage is a young one, so the strip is zoomed in to epochs — the finer subdivisions inside a period. The solid bar is the fossil range: the span between the oldest and the youngest fossil that palaeontologists have assigned to Felis catus. Above itBeside it, each dot is one dated fossil find — few enough to count, so they are drawn individually rather than as a graph. The orange marker is the DNA clock: DNA accumulates mutations at a roughly steady rate, so comparing this species' DNA with its relatives estimates when the lineage split off — independently of any fossil.
The two clocks disagree here. The fossil record reaches back to 2.58 Ma, but the molecular clock dates the lineage to only 1.9 Ma — about 0.68 Myr younger. A fossil cannot be older than the lineage it belongs to, so one of the two is off: either the fossil is assigned to the wrong species, or the clock is running fast.
How it livedPBDB
Record type184 356 records
Origin
Range
Wildobservation + sensor
Human sightings and records, or camera-trap / sensor detections — someone (or a device) saw or captured the species in the wild.
Museum / Voucheredphysical evidence
Backed by a physical specimen — a herbarium sheet, sample or voucher held in a collection. “Vouchered” means supported by material evidence, not just an observation.
Wildobservation + sensor
Human sightings and records, or camera-trap / sensor detections — someone (or a device) saw or captured the species in the wild.
Holding institutions43 of 86 geolocated
Institutions and collections holding physical, vouchered specimens of this species — click a row to fly to it on the map.
| Institution | Specimens |
|---|---|
| ASNHClocation not on record | 234 |
| Sydney, AU | 146 |
| Museums Victorialocation not on record | 143 |
| DOI/NPS, Salem Maritime National Historic Sitelocation not on record | 117 |
| Australian National Wildlife Collectionlocation not on record | 69 |
| Cambridge, US | 48 |
| Bonn, DE | 47 |
| Buenos Aires, AR | 47 |
| Natick, US | 47 |
| Geneva, CH | 46 |
| Western Australian Museumlocation not on record | 44 |
| Tasmanian Museum & Art Gallerylocation not on record | 39 |
| QVMAGlocation not on record | 34 |
| Stockholm, SE | 29 |
| Natural History Museum Rotterdamlocation not on record | 22 |
| Toronto, CA | 22 |
| Museum and Art Gallery of the Northern Territorylocation not on record | 19 |
| National Natural History Collectionslocation not on record | 18 |
| Washington, US | 17 |
| Tilburg, NL | 16 |
| IMEDEAlocation not on record | 16 |
| Auckland, NZ | 12 |
| EL PASO, US | 12 |
| New Haven, US | 12 |
| Museo civico La Terra e l'Uomo di Crocetta del Montellolocation not on record | 11 |
| East Lansing, US | 10 |
| Honolulu, US | 9 |
| Salzburg, AT | 9 |
| Albany, US | 9 |
| MZLUlocation not on record | 9 |
| Oulu, FI | 8 |
| Florida Museum of Natural History- Zoology, Paleontology & Paleobotanylocation not on record | 8 |
| Ohio State University - Mammal Division, Columbus, OH (OSUM)location not on record | 8 |
| Iowa City, US | 7 |
| San Diego, US | 7 |
| Bourges, FR | 7 |
| Puerto Ayora, EC | 7 |
| München, DE | 6 |
| Universidad de Caldas (UCaldas)location not on record | 6 |
| Museo de Zoología de la Universidad de Concepción (UCCC_MZUC)location not on record | 5 |
| Washington State University, Charles R. Conner Museumlocation not on record | 5 |
| Sam Noble Oklahoma Museum of Natural Historylocation not on record | 4 |
| University of Victorialocation not on record | 4 |
| Zacatecas, MX | 4 |
| San Francisco, US | 4 |
| Tromsø, NO | 4 |
| Muzeum Górnośląskie w Bytomiulocation not on record | 4 |
| NTNU-VMlocation not on record | 3 |
| Copenhagen, DK | 3 |
| Royal Saskatchewan Museumlocation not on record | 2 |
| University of Wyoming Museum of Vertebrateslocation not on record | 2 |
| Universidad Católica de Manizaleslocation not on record | 2 |
| Mexico City, MX | 2 |
| NSW Dept of Planning, Industry and Environmentlocation not on record | 2 |
| Science Museum of Minnesotalocation not on record | 2 |
| Ann Arbor, US | 2 |
| SMNHTAUlocation not on record | 2 |
| North Carolina Museum of Natural Scienceslocation not on record | 2 |
| Liverpool, GB | 1 |
| Ensenada, MX | 1 |
| Paris, FR | 1 |
| Philadelphia, US | 1 |
| University of Nevada, Museum of Biologylocation not on record | 1 |
| Fundación Ecosistemas Secos de Colombia (FESC)location not on record | 1 |
| Instituto de Investigación de Recursos Biológicos Alexander von Humboldt (IAvH)location not on record | 1 |
| Provo, US | 1 |
| Wuzhou, CN | 1 |
| Universidad Nacional de Colombia (UNAL)location not on record | 1 |
| Abilene Christian University Natural History Collectionlocation not on record | 1 |
| Fundación Parque Jaime Duquelocation not on record | 1 |
| Universidad de La Salle (La Salle)location not on record | 1 |
| 1 | |
| Chicago, US | 1 |
| Berkeley, US | 1 |
| Bavarian State Collection of Zoologylocation not on record | 1 |
| University of Malaya, Museum of Zoologylocation not on record | 1 |
| Seattle, US | 1 |
| Texas Cooperative Wildlife Collectionlocation not on record | 1 |
| UTCMlocation not on record | 1 |
| Denver, US | 1 |
| Natural History Museum of Utahlocation not on record | 1 |
| Guasave, MX | 1 |
| Banyoles, ES | 1 |
| Barcelona, ES | 1 |
| Philip L. Wright Zoological Museumlocation not on record | 1 |
| New Mexico Museum of Natural History and Sciencelocation not on record | 1 |
Where the DNA of Felis catus was picked up in samples of water, soil or air — nobody saw the organism, only its DNA left behind. A trace is a clue that the species was near, not a confirmed sighting.
Signal
Where its DNA was found
How strong is each trace?
Modelled climatemodelled
How to read this: each dot is one detection of this species' DNA in an environmental sample. The confidence meter weighs how many independent studies and places back up the signal — one detection in one study is a hint; many across several studies is solid. Records dated before 2008 (when eDNA methods began) are treated as likely mislabeled and left off the map.