"EvelynVogtGamble(Divamanque)" wrote:

Probably because cats are TRUE carnivores, and 9,000 years
is scarcely a blip on the evolutionary time-scale.

It is for humans, who take at least 12 or 13 years to become old enough
to reproduce, and who give birth to one or two children a year, more
or less. Whereas a cat reaches sexual maturity in 6-9 months, and can
give birth to several kittens at once. I don't know how many litters per
year a cat typically has - I guess it depends on the climate where they
live? In the North African/Middle Eastern areas where cats were first
domesticated, I would imagine they could have 2 or 3 litters a year.

The upshot being that cat evolution can happen a lot more quickly than
human evolution, and 9,000 years might indeed be significant.

And if cats were evolving in order to adapt to the diet humans were
feeding them, then perhaps they would no longer *be* true carnivores.

Obviously, this didn't happen, but I was just curious as to why. My
guess is that even as cats were fed by the humans they lived with or
near, they continued to be predators, and maybe even got the bulk of
their sustenance from hunting.

Joyce