The first sighting of the cat...

Question
Dear Jessica,
    Hi! I am a 12 year old sixth grader and I own 2 cats and 2 dogs.  I was wondering, about where specifically the first cat was sited, how long ago it was and what type of cat it was. Thats all I would like to know!!

I appreciate any help or suggestions you could provide.

Cordially,
Aubrie Sedlak :)

Answer
Hi Aubrie!

Cats have been around longer than humans have.  The cats we keep as pets have actually changed very little from their wild relatives.  So the first cat sighting was millions of years ago.

The first documentation we have of cats as we know them today comes from Egypt in the form of paintings, about 5000 years old.  

Nobody is really sure where today's domestic cat draws his heritage from, but most experts believe they have descended from the African Wildcat.  In fact, our brown tabby cats look almost identical to the African Wildcat.  Here's a picture of the African Wildcat:

http://www.knowledgenews.net/picturethis/wildcat.jpg

The African Wildcat still exists today and can be found all over the continent of Africa.  Similar wildcats can be found all over Asia and Europe.  

It is believed that our housecats first began as African Wildcats that the Egyptians tamed at least 5000 years ago.  Paintings of the cherished cats of that time closely resemble the breed we know today as the Abyssinian.  There isn't any evidence that the Abyssinian breed originated in Egypt, but this will give you an idea of what the first domesticated cats on record looked like:

http://web.odu.edu/webroot/orgs/hs/nurs/nursing.nsf/files/abyssinian.jpg/$FILE/a...

However, the cats the Egyptians tamed weren't really considered a "breed".  Instead, they were a species - felis catus (in other words, domestic cat).

The oldest cat breed known is probably the Siamese.  These cats occurred naturally among domestic cats in Thailand.  They were named as their own breed in the late 1800's.