Domestication has done cats And dogs More diverse, but also curiously – with serious implications for their health and well -being, according to new research.
At first glance, Persian cats and carlins Do not seem to have much in common. One is a cat, the other is a dog, separated by 50 million years of evolution.
But when the evolving biologist Abby Grace Drake and her colleagues scanned 1,810 cat skulls, dogs and their wild parents, they found something strange. Despite their distant stories, many cats of cats and dogs have a striking similarity in the shape of the skull.
In evolutionary biology, divergence is a common process. In simple terms, the divergence is the place where two organizations that share common ancestry are becoming more and more different over time, while convergence means becoming more similar. While animal populations divide and adapt to different environments, they gradually develop new features, a process known as divergent evolution.
This is one of the main ways in which new species form different features, which changes populations on separate paths. But sometimes evolution can take a different direction. Convergence occurs when unrelated species, shaped by similar pressures, evolve independently of similar characteristics.
In the case of domestic cats, dogs and many other domesticated species, intentional and unintentional selection by humans seems to have created convergence, accidentally leading different species to similar features.
Despite a long history of evolving separation, the flat face races like the Persian cat and the carlins share similar skull structures.
The winter sonata, a Persian race, obtains a comb during the first national cat in Vietnam cat in Hanoi (AFP / Getty)
To study to what extent domestication has reshaped the structure of the skull, Drake and his colleagues analyzed 3D scans of skulls from museum specimens, veterinary schools and digital archives. Their set of data included domestic cats such as Siamese, Maine Coon and Persian breeds, as well as more than 100 breeds of short dog dogs such as carlins with long races like the necks.
Their results have shown that domestication has not only increased the diversity of the shape of the skull beyond that of wolves and wild cats, but has also led cat and dog breeds to be mutually resembled, with convergence to long or flat faces. Wild canids (the group of animals which includes dogs, wolves, foxes and jackals) tend to share a similar elongated skull, while wild felides (the group of animals which includes domestic cats, lions, tigers and jaguars) show a more natural variation.
However, the domestic breeds of the two species now cover a more extreme range at the two ends of the scale. This trend can be seen in the emergence of high cats to look like XL intimidation dogs.
Domestication has long shown that when humans intervene, even distant species can eventually look, and sometimes suffer, in a similar way.
Cats and dogs evolve to be more like (Getty / Istock)
Selective reproduction has exaggerated features through species. Many other changes in human manufacture can push animals beyond what their bodies can naturally support. For example, some chickens raised for their meat have 30% of their body weight in the breast muscle, which often causes heart and pulmonary problems.
Human preference for flat pets draws from some of our most fundamental instincts. Humans are wired to respond to childhood characteristics such as rounded heads, small noses and large low eyes. These features, which are exaggerated in many breeds of flat face and dogs, imitate the appearance of human babies.
Of all the species, humans are among the most altrian, which means that we were born helpless and dependent on caregivers for survival, a line that we share with puppies and kittens. On the other hand, precocious animals are able to see, hear, stand up and move shortly after birth. Because human infants count so strongly on adult care, evolution has shaped us to be sensitive to the signals of vulnerability and need.
These signals, such as rounded cheeks and wide eyes of babies, are known as social relaases. They trigger a caregiver in adults, speech in more acute tones to the supply of parental care.
The puppies, like human babies, were born helpless and depend on their caregivers for survival (Getty)
Hareng gulls (a type of seagull) are an example in non -human animals. Their chicks instinctively pit a red spot on the parent's beak, which triggers the adult to regurgitate food. This red spot acts as a social recovery, ensuring that the needs of chicks are met at the right time. In the same way, pets have actually diverted the old healthcare mechanisms have evolved for our own offspring.
These features can give pets an advantage in soliciting man care and attention, but they have a cost.
The British government communicates its animal protection committee to provide independent expert advice on emerging animal protection concerns. In the reports they produced in 2024, the Committee raised serious concerns concerning the effect of selective farming in cats and dogs.
The reports stressed that reproduction for extreme physical traits, such as flat faces and exaggerated skull forms, has led to generalized health problems, in particular breathing difficulties, neurological conditions and birth complications.
Some cats are raised to look like XL (Pa Wire) intimidators
The Committee argues that animals with serious hereditary health problems should no longer be used for reproduction and calls for stricter regulation of breeders. Without these reforms, many popular races will continue to suffer from avoidable conditions and limiting life.
Selective reproduction has shown what facility humans can bend nature to their preferences and how much millions of years of evolutionary separation can be replaced by a few decades of artificial selection.
By choosing pets that imitate the faces of our own infants, we have often involuntarily selected for traits that harm animals. Understanding the forces that stimulate convergence between species is a reminder that we play a powerful and sometimes dangerous role in shaping it.
Grace Carroll is a lecturer in animal and well-being behavior at the School of Psychology, Queen's University Belfast
This article was initially published by “The Conversation” and is republished under a Creative Commons license. Read it original article
