Domestic Cats are classified like all other animals. Learn
more about the Classification of Cats.
Scientists classify living organisms into different
kingdoms, family, and orders to study more about them. Although, most people do
not get into such details, but certain individuals who love cats, will definitely
want to know the scientific classification of cats.
However, before that here is little history about
classifications. In nineteenth century, there was this huge craze to classify
the organisms scientifically. During that era, researchers identified numerous
species and subspecies. They named the organisms by their own name or by the
name of traveler, who bought them from different regions. Accordingly, cats
were no exception and researchers classified them too.
Below is a detailed description of the scientific
classification of the cats. To start with, the domestic cat in the household is
commonly referred as Felis Catus.
How Researchers Classified Cats:
Life science expert Carouse Linnaes gave the name Felis
Catus to the domestic cat in the year 1758. The domestic cats are in fact
distant relatives of the wild cats. Therefore, domestic cats are the subspecies
of feral cats. Thus, according to the guidelines of the ICZN (International
Commission on Zoological Nomenclature), wild cats are referred as F silvestris
and F silvestris catus for the domestic species.
Cats are mammals and represent
the vertebrate groups. Furthermore, since cats are meat eaters they are placed
under carnivores order. The easy and scientific tabulation of the cat classification
is as follows:
Common name: cat, feline, kitty cat, domestic cat, and
pussycat
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Chordata
Class: Mammalia
Order: Carnivora
Suborder: Feliformia
Family: Felidae
Subfamily: Felinate/Pantherinae
Species: Felis catus
Cats such as domestic cats, Pumas, cheetahs, lynx, ocelot,
and others come into Subfamily Felinae whereas large cats such as leopards,
jaguars, lions, and tigers come in subfamily Pantherinae.
Long before the scientists assigned scientific
classification for cats, ancient travelers and cat lovers had already
classified them into subspecies. It usually depended on the notion that the
particular cat type was representative of the main phenotype of cat in the
area.
This method was same as that of Victorian love of
gathering and classifying the organisms and then claiming them in certain
order. For instance, the present day Felis Catus anura is referred as the Manx,
catus Siamensis as Siamese, F catus cartusenesis as the Chartreux, and F catus
angorensis as Turkish Angora.
About Species:
Species are nothing but taxonomic assembling of animals,
which are similar but are readily distinguishable from one another. Although,
they appear similar they never crossbreed naturally.
For instance, tigers and cats are of same species but they
are very different in terms of behavior as well as in type , so there is a need
to classify them more into subspecies or races. Mammals of a particular
subspecies vary morphologically from distinctive mammals.
The domestic cat is actually the offspring of the original
African Wildcat. The subspecies of an African wildcat is F s lybica. The
domestic cats take the place below F s lybica and become felis catus. All
breeds of felis catus interbreed naturally.
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