The cat (Felis catus) is a tiny carnivorous animal that is domesticated. It is the only domesticated species in the Felidae family, and it is commonly referred to as the domestic cat to distinguish it from the family’s wild members. A cat can be a house cat, a farm cat, or a feral cat, the latter of which roams freely and avoids humans. Humans prize domestic cats for their sociability and ability to hunt rodents. Various cat registries recognize over 60 different cat breeds.

The cat’s structure is comparable to that of other felids: it has a strong, flexible body, rapid reflexes, keen teeth, and retractable claws that are specialized for killing tiny prey. It has excellent night vision and a keen sense of smell. Meowing, purring, trilling, hissing, growling, and grunting are all examples of cat communication, as well as cat-specific body language. The cat is a solitary hunter yet a sociable animal that is most active at dawn and night. It can detect noises generated by mice and other tiny creatures that are either weak or too high in frequency for human hearing. It produces and detects pheromones.

Cat fancy is a pastime in which domestic cats are bred and displayed as registered pedigreed cats at competitions. From spring until late fall, female domestic cats can produce kittens, with litter sizes typically ranging from two to five kittens. Spaying and neutering of pet cats and abandoningg of ets, resulted in enormous populations of feral cats across the world, leading to the extinction of whole bird, mammal, and reptile species and provoking population management.

It has long been assumed that cat domestication began in ancient Egypt, as cats have been revered in Egypt since approximately 3100 BC. Around 7500 BC, cats were domesticated for the first time in the Near East. There are around 220 million owned cats and 480 million stray cats in the globe as of 2021. Domestic cats were the second-most popular pet in the United States in 2017, with 95 million owners. As of 2020, 26 percent of individuals in the United Kingdom own a cat, with a population of 10.9 million pet cats.

Old English catt is considered to be derived from the Late Latin term cattus, which was first used in the early sixth century. The term ‘cattus’ is said to be derived from an Egyptian predecessor of Coptic au, “tomcat,” or its feminine form suffixed with -t. The Late Latin word may come from an Afro-Asian or Nilo-Saharan language. Nobiin kads and the Nubian word kaddîska “wildcat” are potential origins or cognates. The Nubian term qa qi may be borrowing from Arabic. “Equally probable, the forms come from an old Germanic term, imported into Latin, and then to Greek, Syriac, and Arabic,” says the author. Northern Sami gáfi, “female stoat,” and Hungarian hölgy, “stoat,” are both derived from Proto-Uralic *käwä, “female (of a furred animal).”

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