"Ted Davis" wrote in message
...
On Wed, 4 Aug 2004 10:31:43 -0700, "Cat Lover"
wrote:

I'd love to have a lion or tiger that was the size of a house cat.

Would it be possible to get one with selective breeding? Take the
smallest
of each litter and use it to breed even smaller cats until you get to the
right size? If so, how long would it take? I'm guessing well over a
century,
if not much longer.

Probably never. Cats are not genetically plastic - people have been
breeding domestic cats for several thousand years and have not managed
to make much difference in them: coat colors and length, some tail
deformities, and that hideous crushed face on some long hair breeds
are about it. Large males can be about four times the weight of small
females whereas with more plastic animals like dogs, breeds vary in
weight by a range of something like twenty to one.

How do you explain the difference in size between a lion and a tabby? They
both supposedly come from the same line. Why can't selective breeding
accomplish the same thing?