Wild Chinese mountain cats aren’t the ancestors of domestic cats, but the two types of felines still swap genes. The wildcats’ DNA is inscribed on the genes of some pet cats living on the Qinghai-Tibetan Plateau, but the mixing of genetic material extends back only a couple dozen generations, researchers report online June 23 in Science Advances.
Cats and humans have lived together in China for at least 5,300 years, yet previous genetic studies on feline domestication hadn’t included DNA from East Asian cats (SN: 12/17/13). So researchers wondered whether the mountain cats (Felis silvestris bieti or Felis bieti) had ever contributed to Chinese pets’ genes. Yes, the team
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