Читать книгу The Cat Owners Handbook - Graham Meadows - Страница 7

A distant ancestor of today’s domestic cat may have been Martelli’s wild cat (Felis lumensis), a species now extinct. It was similar in size to today’s small wild cats. About 600,000–900,000 years ago it may have given rise to Felis silvestris, from which three distinct types evolved according to the region and environment in which they lived. These were the central European or Forest wild cat (F. silvestris silvestris), the Asiatic desert cat (F. silvestris ornata) and the African wild cat (F. silvestris lybica). The latter inhabited most of Asia and North Africa, and because the process of domestication of the cat occurred mainly in the Middle East, the African wild cat was almost certainly the principal ancestor of modern domestic cats.