DOMESTICATION OF THE CAT

摘要

Cats were not the first animal species domesticated by humans and will certainly not be the last. As of 1986, the total number of companion cats in US households surpassed the number of dogs — making this species the most popular pet. So what does domestication of the cat mean, and how was this accomplished? Domestication is the breeding and containment of a large group of animals under the control of humans and involves the geographic, reproductive and behavioral isolation of this group from the wild population. The primary difference between domestication and taming is that taming refers simply to the decrease of a fear response to humans in an individual animal, whereas with domestication, the fear response transfers from generation to generation.