Spanish Shipwreck Reveals Evidence of Earliest Known Pet Cats to Arrive in US
smithsonianmag.com55 points by wallflower 6 days ago
55 points by wallflower 6 days ago
"Additionally, they’ve discovered the remains of several critters, including cockroaches, rats and at least two domestic cats."
The idea that we've recovered identifiable cockroaches that have been submerged for almost 500 years breaks a few ideas I had about reality.
The exoskeleton is hard and it doesn't rot very fast. If there no biologist or chemistry nearby, you can imagine it's made of something similar to plastic. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arthropod_exoskeleton#Chemical...
And as a sibling comment says, there is too few oxygen down there so it rots even slower.
They don't rot if there's no oxygen
Even so, I'm surprised there'd be much of a cockroach left after 500 years or so. Presumably, they were in a well protected part of the wreck not exposed to flowing water. After water rushed in it must have essentially stayed there and any oxygen in it absorbed by nearby wood, etc. and not replaced.
Similarly, with the cat DNA. It would be interesting to know the exact circumstances of how they were found.
isn't there oxygen in H2O ?
The oxygen inside water molecules is chemically bound and not really available for other work.
Water does carry dissolved gases like O2 gas, but as sibling pointed out, not at these depths.
>The two felines—one adult, one juvenile—appear to have been cared for by the sailors
so, these were ship's cats rather than passenger or cargo cats.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ship%27s_cat
"The ship's cat has been a common feature on many trading, exploration, and naval ships dating to ancient times... most importantly to control rodents"
and one presumes others were on most every other ship to have plied those waters
I’m surprised there would be any skeletal remains at all after 400+ years. The article is light on science but the original paper mentions Isotopic analysis which is very interesting.
I mean… these might be the easiest known cats, but I’m not sure they arrived.
It is sad; These cats did not make it.
No cat from 500 years ago made it, as far as we know.
Cats--which as I recall are descended from African wildcats--are arguably the most successful carnivores around. They're incredibly adaptable.
>Cats--which as I recall are descended from African wildcats--are arguably the most successful carnivores around. They're incredibly adaptable.
I live in a village in Romania, a lot of cats get killed by cars, I always have an old cat that seems to be more smarted and survives for long time, but most younger cats get killed before 1 year. You would think they are smart and plus evolution that filters out the less adapted one the cats would be capable to avoid cars. Here we do not keep cats locked inside so it is sad but there is nothing we can do about this.
Pedestrians still get hit by cars. You’d think people would evolve, no? In both cases the rate of car accidents is not sufficient to kill off large portions of the species and apply very strong selective pressure for individuals who are immune towards this.
In either case when you compare stats like success rates per hunt, housecats are some of the most successful hunters on earth.
In my life I am not aware of anyone getting killed by a car in my village, where a few of my cars were killed and I seen many cat bodies on the side of the road. Also people do not claim that are a top predator with high agility, vision and reflexes.
I love cats but I cannot deal with the inevitable cleanup of the litter box.
I've spent a lot of money trying to solve this problem.. including buying the $700 litter robot, etc.. (that thing is not worth it at all btw)
The best litter box is the Tidy Cats Breeze (if your cat accepts it)
Bad smells (usually) (mostly) come from urine mixing with feces.. this litter box separates urine from feces, and the pellets and pads are engineered to control odors. Plus, the pellets are easier to cleanup than other boxes..
If you use that litter box, and feed your cat foods that it digests well - which in general usually means feeding your cat healthy food.. then cleanup is going to be very easy and painless.
> the $700 litter robot, etc.. (that thing is not worth it at all btw)
I can confirm this as well. For one, it doesn't even work that well. You're still doing a lot of manual scraping and cleanup too. The thing also just scares the cat. And if you know anything about cats, they're very particular about their litter box, especially about privacy and a sense of "safety". A motor and loud sounds coming from their litter box at various times throughout the day is not generally something they will feel comfortable with and it's possible that they just won't even use it at all.
As an opposing anecdote, one of my cats loves watching it when it activates, and will hang out in the thing for fun (not while it's cleaning, of course). But only 1 of the 3 cats wants anything to do with it.
We didn't pay $700 for it, though. They had a sale a while ago on the previous model, and it was less than half that price.
zero manual scrapping and cleanup here. secret is in using proper clamping litter
Bad smell in urine comes from ammonia, nothing to do with mixing. The quality and mechanism of the litter helps to neutralize it. Also I’ll take an automatic machine over manual. The market was junk ten years ago but there’s some good ones out lately, like Petkit, Popur, or Casa Leo.
At least you don't have to scoop it up in the street in front of everyone like a dog owner.
I watched a guy in the park hold the bag directly under the dog. Now that's efficiency!
We should just invent what we had for horses in cities but for dogs, a little poopy-collector dangling from their hips at all time, that catches it just like that guy in the park.
Slide a paper towel under the dog before the first dropping, then scooping with a bag goes smoothly - little to no residue left on the grass.
Hopefully it's always "in front of everyone" because dog owners only pick up poop if someone is watching.
True, this is why I always look around when my dog poops, so I can evaluate if I should pick it up or not. Usually I leave it so people like astura can get mad when they step on it.
Move to a farm and get some outside cats, they shit in the woods but come home overnight. If they don't they get eaten by foxes etc. so they better. We never had a litter box until the cat turned 15 and started to become less willing to go out in the snow.
Ok, moving to a farm just to get some outside cats might be slightly overdoing it but there's loads more reasons why you want to live on a farm, preferably somewhere out in the woods so you might as well enjoy the cats which come with the territory.
Around here (Portugal) plenty of people have outside cats in the city and suburbs, it’s great. However there’s a chance they’ll decide not to come back to you.
"However there’s a chance they’ll decide not to come back to you."
That's good reason to own a dog. ;-)
See, I am the only house owner in the street without a cat. Guess whose garden is very frequently visited by literally all the cats? Isn't there some plants to repel them? And no I'm not getting a dog
Go to your local gardener and ask for plants that repels cats/has scents cats don't like and plant them where you notice they use as a bathroom. Some people plant plants with thorns/prickles too, which seems to help a bit after the cats learn it hurts.
Most obvious solution otherwise is to have a fence if you don't have one already.
What kind of fence keeps out cats? They are pretty good climbers and jumpers.
A fence where the top part protrudes outwards towards the side of the invaders. Aka "anti-cat fence".
I just let mine shit outside, and it also gets to enjoy the outdoors. Problem solved.
Yet you create so many additional problems by allowing your cat to roam outside.
You don't know this, but instead assuming parent lives in some suburban area with lots of other cats. They could be living outside in the woods, 5km to any close settlement, with minimal side-effects of having a cat outside (besides the side-effect of having a few less rodents around).
But no, lets have a knee-jerk reaction to anyone who has an outside cat, without understanding any of the context.
Besides, many people put bells on their cats, and then they're unlikely to catch anything at all in the wilderness.
TIL I learned that birds are rodents.
It seems that in the modern era of social media campaigns for everything there can hardly exist a perfectly chill, normal activity that someone hasn't somehow contrived into a type of moral and ethical sin. It's tedious, sad and ultimately, kneejerk stupid. I strongly doubt that the world's domesticated cat population is generally creating an ecological apocalypse and the studies I have seen around it are far from anything you could call solid. Either way, believe it or not, you can actually also use very practical solutions like bell collars to easily fix most of these situations. How about getting off your moral pedestal about such a silly "issue".
Maybe I've just had stupid cats, but they never managed to catch any birds, even when they were without bells. Plenty of mouse offerings though, but seems the bells help with that too.
Ahh now I get it. Your opinion on the matter is based on your personal anecdotes.
I apologize. I was thinking of all of the empirical data that shows how cats are able to cause so much harm to the ecosystems they roam.
I love my cats. I’d never let them outside just out of respect for my neighbors and the fauna.
Yeah, my opinion is a bit more pragmatic and attached to reality, where context, environment and your actions matter, not some "empirical" study done by universities.
Personally, I love my cats so I let them roam outside instead of keeping them inside like a prison. Then I also care about other animals so naturally they have a bell so they cannot (successfully) hunt other animals. But again, pragmatic approaches aren't for everyone, some people love books and/or data instead :)
The alternative to empiricism (science) is rationalism (wish-casting), not pragmatism (least harm).
I often let my dog off-leash. Weighing the risks & rewards, I pragmatically choose to break the law, knowing full well that I'm in the wrong, not some special case. I eat the tickets and social scorn without complaint. My dog has pretty good recall and is super gentle (esp w/ kids). But the big bad govt (and other parents) didn't write the laws with my special pooch in mind.
You're confident your cat doesn't harm birds. Terrific. It's still wrong, in the general case. So take your lumps.
A (huge) point in your favor is that 2/3rd of (domesticated) cats are feral. So keeping cats indoors in order to better protect birds seems quixotic.
In these parts, owners keep their cats indoors to protect them. Recently, my SO's cat escaped her "catio" and was swiftly caught by a coyote. (A neighbor saw it happen. Horrifying.) Maybe your locale doesn't have coyotes.
Edit: Another exception (that I can think of) is farm/barn cats. Pretty much a necessity. Alas, coyotes. And probably hawks.
Could be worth considering that outdoor cats in the US may actually be a positive because so many of our country's natural predators of rodents and birds have been wiped out.