Why do cats lick people?

It is a known fact that cats are absolutely obsessed with licking. Lots of time, they could be seen licking themselves while spending their time under the sun. In fact, research suggests an adult domestic feline can spend up to 8 per cent of their waking hours grooming their body with their tongue. Licking can also play an important social role with felines, with adults often licking each other just before copulating.

But what about humans: why do cats lick people? The good news: there’s no evidence to say your cat considers this any part of a pre-mating ritual. The bad news: scientists and cat behavioural experts aren’t completely sure why your cat might mop their little tongue against your face or hand.

However, while there’s no overarching and definitive explanation for this behaviour, there are several theories about why domestic felines lick humans. Spoiler: your cat doesn’t come off well in any of them.

Why do cats lick people?

There’s no one reason why your cat might lick you. However, there are three main theories why domestic felines engage in this behaviour:

1. They’re displaying they trust you.

2. They’re accessing biochemical information from you skin.

3. They’re marking you as another one of their possessions.

The Trust Theory

Yes, there’s a chance a cat may lick you to show they trust you. Or least to show they don’t consider you as serious competition.

“This type of licking is similar to a cat-to-cat behaviour known as allogrooming, which is basically mutual grooming. A cat will learn this from its mother when they’re a very young blind and deaf kitten. It’s basically to clean the kitten and strengthen social bonds,” says Dr David Sands, expert in animal psychology with over 25 years of clinical experience.

“Because of these maternal origins, adult cats will only lick other cats they trust and are not in competition with. And this trusting grooming behaviour may be transferred onto a human.

“After all, cats are not sitting there saying ‘I’m a cat and you’re a human being’. To them, animals are either in competition with them or not. And licking shows you’re not in competition.” 

In other words, if your cat licks you, it’s not a positive sign of attachment. It’s just not a negative one (which is as good as it gets with a cat). 

If in doubt, consider the University of Lincoln study tactfully titled Domestic Cats Do Not Show Signs of Secure Attachment to Their Owners.

When swapping 20 felines and their human owners, researchers found the cats appeared to bond as well with strangers (shown through behaviours such as play and mirroring) than with their actual owners.

The researchers concluded: “These results are consistent with the view that adult cats are typically quite autonomous, even in their social relationships, and not necessarily dependent on others to provide a sense of security and safety.”

The Biochemical Theory

While this sounds complicated, this is essentially the very simple idea that a cat will like you because they’re interested in whatever scent is on your hand.

“Cat taste buds are so sensitive – they can pick up scents from our skins that could include pheromone secretions from other animals,” says Sands.

“It could also be that you’ve got salt, moisturiser or whatever you’ve just eaten on your hand. To cats, all these are interesting scents and licking allows them to check it out. That’s simply all it might be.” 

The Possession Play Theory

Cats are, as Sands puts it, “scent machines from head to tail”. And their favourite smell? Their own. In fact, they love their own unique scent – which acts as an airborne fingerprint – so much they think it should supplant all others.

As Sands explains, this is why a cat may lick themselves after your stroke them – “it’s purely to get rid of your scent!” he says.

“So much other cat behaviour comes down to possession and ownership. Everything that they do is very territorial,” Sands adds.

“Sometimes when cats groom other cats and people they’re scraping off scents and supplanting it with their own. It’s their way of marking and saying ‘This is mine! I own you!’”

He adds: “People always think cats rubbing themselves against you or things you touch are expressing love. But actually, cats are very possessing individuals. For them, the more they can brush past you and deposit their scent, the better!”

(courtesy: Thomas Ling)

Enjoy..Anil ^_^

The Origins Of Cats

Its been a long time since an interesting post came up with regards to cats. And here it is what I wanted to share with you all:

The domestic cat (Felis catus) is one of the most recently evolved species within the Felidae family.

The Felidae family have been split into three genera:
Panthera (cats that roar – lions, tigers, leopards, snow leopards, clouded leopards and jaguars)
Acinonyx (the Cheetah)
Felis (all other ‘small’ cats)

However, the classification of the Felidae family is difficult, in part because of the difficulty in distinguishing species by their phenotype and morphology – they all look remarkably similar and, for example, it is extremely difficult for even trained experts to differentiate the skull of a lion from that of a tiger. More recent genetic investigations have suggested eight distinct clusterings or lineages within the Felidae family which could therefore form the basis of their reclassification in the future.
Common features

All cats have evolved as predatory hunting mammals with particularly keen senses of hearing, sight and smell. Anatomical characteristics such as the rounded head and skeletal structure suggest that all the 37 recognised species within the Felidae family evolved from a common ancestor, probably living in Asia around 10-12 million years ago. There has been a rapid expansion and diversity of the Felidae family during the past 10 to 11 million years and by 3 million years ago there was a wide variety of cats populating all regions of the earth except the Arctic, Antarctic and Australia. The rise and fall of sea levels over many millennia helped both to create conditions where Felidae species could migrate and occupy other geographical locations (when sea levels were low) and isolate the development of species (when sea levels were high). The widespread migration of ancestral cats was probably made easier by their natural behaviour to disperse and seek their own territory, and also the need to follow the prey species they hunted on.

Felidae are the most highly developed carnivorous hunters of all mammalian species. With the exception of lions, which live in groups, all other wild cats have developed as solitary animals with the ability to hunt and fend for themselves. Cats are territorial, developing their own area in which they hunt and marking out their territory mainly via scent. They come together mainly for mating.

Again with the exception of lions (where males have a distinctive mane), the appearance of male and female cats is very similar, although males tend to be slightly larger. They have five digits on the front feet, and four on the hind feet. The digits are protected by pads, which also help reduce sound when they are hunting. Other than the cheetah, all cats have retractable claws.

Cats have developed a wide range of coat colours – under natural conditions, these are adaptations to allow the cat to be camouflaged and assist its hunting lifestyle.
Evolution and adaptation of Felis catus

Co-existence of cats and humans is evident from fossil records from early human settlements, although these have been assumed to be wild cats. The development of true domestication (or perhaps more accurately ‘taming’ of cats) was previously thought to have occurred in Egypt around 3600 years ago. Skulls of cats found in Egyptian cat burial grounds (called Mau by the Egyptians) have been identified as mainly being of the species Felis sylvestris lybica (the African wildcat) (some texts will also classify the African wildcat as Felis lybica lybica) and it is this wild cat living in Asia and North Africa that is now thought to have been the major ancestor of the modern-day Felis catus. However, more recent evidence shows that feline domestication probably occurred about 10,000 years ago or more in the Middle East, in the region of the Fertile Crescent. The earliest true record of domestication comes from a cat that was found deliberately buried with its owner in a grave in Cyprus, some 9500 years ago, and it is assumed that domestication will have begun some time before this as there were no native cats on Cyprus.
Living near people

The first evidence of human stores of grain come from Israel about 10,000 years ago, and it is known that the development of grain stores caused an accumulation and rise in the population of the house mouse. It is this rise in the rodent population that is thought to have first attracted wild cats into close proximity with humans and then led to their subsequent taming. Cats more tolerant of humans would have been more likely to come close to human settlements, and this self-selection would have helped in the process of their taming and domestication.

Archaeological evidence suggests that cats were commonly found in association with human settlements in the Fertile Crescent (Israel and the surrounding countries) by 3700 years ago, and they became an ‘official deity’ (in the form of the goddess Bastet) in Egypt around 2900 years ago. Large numbers of cats were sacrificed to Bastet and mummified at that time, indicating that the Egyptians were actively breeding cats. By 2000 years ago there was increasing evidence of cats spreading throughout Europe.
Modern cats

Genetic analysis has demonstrated that the DNA of modern-day domestic cats throughout the world is almost identical to that of Felis sylvestris lybica, clearly showing that it is this species that gave rise to our domestic cats. The DNA from other small cats (including the European Wildcat (Felis sylvetris) and the Central Asian and Southern African wildcats (F s ornata and F s cafra) form distinct and unrelated clusters.

Felis sylvestris lybica still survives today and is a solitary nocturnal hunter with a similar appearance to domestic tabby cats, although a somewhat lighter (more sandy-coloured) coat. Individuals of this species are well dispersed across the savanna with large territories due to the relatively sparse availability of rodent prey.

The criteria of what defines a distinct species of animal are not entirely rigid. In general, different species cannot inter-breed, and do not do so under natural conditions. Under artificial conditions, it is possible to inter-breed some species of cats – e.g. lions and tigers, although the offspring are usually infertile. However, because of its close relation to the wildcat (Felis sylvestris), the domestic cat (Felis catus) still retains the ability to inter-breed with this species and this does occur under natural conditions with the resulting offspring being fertile. In some regions, this has caused significant problems with feral and stray cats inter-breeding with the native wildcat leading to a diminishing population of genetically distinct purebred wild cats (e.g. in Scotland and Hungary).

The domestic cat was first classified as Felis catus in 1758 by Carolus Linnaeus, and although this nomenclature is still the most commonly used, recent studies suggest that the domestic cat should really be regarded as a sub-species of the Wildcat – ie Felis sylvestris catus – and this term is used by some.
Domestication of the cat

Felis catus as a species has thus arisen through wildcats living closely with humans. However, this should not be regarded as ‘domestication’ in the same way that dogs and other animals have been domesticated. In general, cats have not undergone major changes during domestication and their form and behaviour remain very similar to that of their wildcat ancestors. They remain perfectly capable of surviving in the wild, and indeed many revert to a feral or wild existence.

The two main theories surrounding the domestication of cats are that either the original wildcats (Felis sylvestris lybica) were deliberately tamed and selected for friendliness, or that rather than being specifically selected they were more ‘tolerated’ by humans and gradually diverged from their ‘wild’ relatives through natural selection and adaptation to hunting the vermin found around human settlements. The latter is probably more likely, at least in the early stages of taming, as other animals such as ferrets and dogs would actually have been much more effective and efficient if human control of vermin had been the purpose. In either scenario, several traits of cats, including their small size, social nature, body language, love of play, high intelligence and perhaps an inborn tendency among all small felids towards tameness, may have facilitated their domestication.

For most other domestic animals, a much clearer and direct benefit to humans is evident, and in general (unlike cats) domestic animals are derived from herd or pack animals. The same cannot be said to be true of cats! Strictly speaking, most cats are not truly domesticated – this is defined as breeding, care and reproduction being totally controlled by humans producing a reproductively isolated population. This can only really be applied to pedigree pet cats, which from a very small proportion of the total pet cat population. Undoubtedly, one of the major attractions of cat ownership today is that while being tame, cats remain little altered from their wild relatives exhibiting many characteristics and traits that are mimicked in wild cats. Today’s domestic cats retain a number of characteristics from their desert-dwelling ancestors, including the ability to survive with a very low water intake through the production of very concentrated urine (more so than dogs) and the production of relatively dry faeces thus minimising water loss. They also tolerate extremes of heat, not showing signs of discomfort until skin temperature exceeds 52 degrees°C, whereas humans start to feel uncomfortable when skin temperature exceeds 44.5°C. There is also a lack of change in body temperature in the domestic cat during a 24 hour period (as they tend to be active both during the day and at night).

Enjoy..Anil ^_^