Sextus

Our neighbourhood always has a couple of stray (or semi-stray) cats wandering around. When we first moved in, back in the summer of '03, one of them was a grey male. He was a very friendly cat, even permitting our daughters - who at the time were eight and five - to pet him. As autumn drew past, however, we noticed that he was sneezing a lot, so my wife scooped him up one day and took him to the vet. There didn't seem to be anything wrong, though, so we assumed it was just allergies.


And, since it was starting to cool off at night, we let him move in with us. Officially his name is Sextus, but because of the allergies he's also known as Sneezlepuss, or Snarflepuss, or even The Incredible Sneezing Cat. The vet's estimate at the time was that he was seven to nine years old, thus making him around 14 or 15 now. He's gotten a little hard of hearing over the last couple years, and he seems to have problems with arthritis - bumping his right foreleg in particular can lead to a nip.


And then I noticed the other day that his pupils were both fully dilated - almost perfect circles, with just a thin rim of iris visible around them. And it wasn't particularly dark in that room. So I carried him into the bedroom, which was better lighted, and his pupils didn't change. Even when he looked directly at the lamp. Wife took him to the vet yesterday, and as we suspected, he's now blind. So he spends most of his time in the upstairs loo, where he doesn't have far to go to find his supper dish and litter box, though of course we take him out to spend some quality time with us each day.

Upgrades

Cats and rats and blue-eyed people

Science Daily has had three interesting articles lately. First, cats (Felis silvestris catus), from the 29 January issue:

The Fertile Crescent of the Middle East has long been identified as a "cradle of civilization" for humans. In a new genetic study, researchers at the University of California, Davis, have concluded that all ancestral roads for the modern day domestic cat also lead back to the same locale.

Findings of the study, involving more than 11,000 cats, are reported in the January issue of the journal Genomics.

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Earlier archaeological evidence and research on the evolutionary history of cats has suggested that domestication of the cat originated about 5,000 to 8,000 years ago in the Fertile Crescent, a region located today in the Middle East. This is the area around the eastern end of the Mediterranean, stretching from Turkey to northern Africa and eastward to modern day Iraq and Iran. This domestication of the cat occurred as humans transitioned from nomadic herding to raising crops and livestock.

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From the DNA analysis, the researchers found that the cats were genetically clustered in four groups that corresponded with the regions of Europe, the Mediterranean basin, east Africa and Asia.

They discovered that randomly bred cats in the Americas were genetically similar to randomly bred cats from Western Europe. They also found that the Maine coone and American shorthair -- two breeds that originated in the United States -- were genetically similar to the seven Western European breeds. This suggests that cats brought to the New World by European settlers have not had sufficient time to develop significant genetic differentiation from their Western European ancestors.

Second, rats (Rattus rattus), from the 6 February issue:

DNA of the common Black Rat has shed light on the ancient spread of rats, people and diseases around the globe. Studying the mitochondrial DNA of 165 Black Rat specimens from 32 countries around the world, an international team of scientists has identified six distinct lineages in the Black Rat’s family tree, each originating from a different part of Asia.

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The six different lineages originated in India, East Asia, the Himalayas, Thailand, the Mekong Delta, and Indonesia.

The Indian lineage spread to the Middle-East around 20,000 years ago, then later to Europe. It reached Africa, the Americas and Australia during the Age of Exploration. The East Asian lineage moved from Taiwan to Japan, the Philippines, and Indonesia, arriving in Micronesia only 3,500 years ago.

The other four lineages have not become so widespread but they could be set to expand their ranges in the future.

And third, blue-eyed people (Homo sapiens), from the 31 January issue:

New research shows that people with blue eyes have a single, common ancestor. A team at the University of Copenhagen have tracked down a genetic mutation which took place 6-10,000 years ago and is the cause of the eye colour of all blue-eyed humans alive on the planet today.

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“Originally, we all had brown eyes”, said Professor Eiberg from the Department of Cellular and Molecular Medicine. “But a genetic mutation affecting the OCA2 gene in our chromosomes resulted in the creation of a “switch”, which literally “turned off” the ability to produce brown eyes”. The OCA2 gene codes for the so-called P protein, which is involved in the production of melanin, the pigment that gives colour to our hair, eyes and skin. The “switch”, which is located in the gene adjacent to OCA2 does not, however, turn off the gene entirely, but rather limits its action to reducing the production of melanin in the iris – effectively “diluting” brown eyes to blue. The switch’s effect on OCA2 is very specific therefore. If the OCA2 gene had been completely destroyed or turned off, human beings would be without melanin in their hair, eyes or skin colour – a condition known as albinism.

Friday cat - 29 Jun

This fellow was hanging around one of the outdoor restaurants in Palau, Sardinia, when I visited there a few years ago.

New critters from the Amazon

In the course of the last decade, Dutch primatologist Dr Marc van Roosmalen has identified several new species of monkeys living in Amazonia. Recently he added a new peccary to the list. And now he has a whole string of new animals, including several new monkeys, more new peccaries, new deer, a new tapir, a new dolphin and a new giant anteater. Dr van Roosmalen has his own website here, but I haven't had a chance to look at it yet. Rather, I've been looking at Darren Naish's summaries posted at Tetrapod Zoology.

Multiple new species of large, living mammal (part I) gives background information, and tells about the new dwarf tapir.
Multiple new species of large, living mammal (part II) tells about the new deer, peccaries, dolphin, manatee, small carnivores and large rodents.
Multiple new species of large, living mammal (part III) tells about several new monkeys.
And Multiple new species of large, living mammal (part IV) tells about a new arboreal giant anteater and a new big cat.

For me, of course, the cat is the most interesting part of the whole thing. Quoting from Dr Naish's part IV:

It is informally dubbed the White-throated black jaguar, but is known to local people as the onça-canguçú. The proposed common name is perhaps misleading given that the animal we are talking about is apparently a valid new species belonging to the genus Panthera, and not a member of the species we call the Jaguar P. onca. It is entirely black expect for an irregularly shaped, white bib-like marking on the throat, is reportedly larger than the jaguar, and (in contrast to melanistic jaguars) rosettes cannot be seen in its coat. Marc has collected eyewitness accounts of the onça-canguçú, and from a community of caboclo people living near the Uira-Curupá River he learnt of a case where a 9-year-old girl was killed by a pair of these cats. On another occasion, two people at Nova Olinda claimed to capture a cub (again, black and with a white throat patch) that had remained on a bank while its parents were occupied swimming across a river. The cub later died but its skull was retained.

Looking forward to reading more about this....

Friday cat - 25 May

It's been a while since I last posted a cat picture, so here's Sextus (aka The Incredible Sneezing Cat) on our bed.

ChapStick

ZUI this post from Wasted Electrons.

H/T to Tam - and she's right; make sure you swallow your drink before you read....

A new/old cat species

From the WWF:

Gland, Switzerland – Scientists have discovered that the clouded leopard found on the islands of Borneo and Sumatra is an entirely new species of cat. The secretive rainforest animal was originally thought to be the same species as the one found in mainland South-east Asia.

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Researchers at the US National Cancer Institute say the differences between the Borneo and mainland clouded leopard were found to be comparable to the differences between other large cat species such as lion, tiger, leopard, jaguar and snow leopard. They believe the Borneo population likely diverged from the mainland population some 1.4 million years ago.

“Genetic research results clearly indicate that the clouded leopards of Borneo should be considered a separate species,” said Dr Stephen O'Brien, Head of the Laboratory of Genomic Diversity, US National Cancer Institute. “DNA tests highlighted around 40 differences between the two species.”

The Bornean clouded leopard was originally classified as a distinct species, Felis diardi (or diardii), but has long been considered to be a subspecies of Neofelis nebulosa. Now that it's being reclassified as a separate species again, it's being referred to (though not yet officially) as N. diardi.

H/T to Darren Naish, who has a good post, with some excellent pictures (including the one I copied above), here. You can read more about it here and here. See here for more about N. nebulosa.

Friday cat - 18 Aug

Here we have Sextus (aka The Incredible Sneezing Cat) trying to decide if it's really safe to be on the same bed as a guinea pig. Apparently it wasn't, because he left shortly after these pictures were taken.

Today's Friday, right?

So here's a cat. This is Sextus, also known as The Incredible Sneezing Cat, who has been living with us almost three years now. He's the only cat we have at present, alas, though we also have seven rodents and a lagomorph in the house.