How Wild Cats Took Over Human Civilization

#pov Thousands of years ago, there were no house cats—only wild predators living far from humans. So how did one of those solitary hunters end up sleeping on our beds? The answer may be stranger than you think. Humans probably didn’t capture wildcats and deliberately turn them into pets. Instead, early farming villages created huge stores of grain, grain attracted mice, and mice attracted wildcats. The cats that were less afraid of humans stayed closer. Humans noticed that these hunters were protecting their food. Over generations, a simple relationship based on survival slowly became one of the most successful partnerships between humans and animals. From Near Eastern wildcats to ancient farming settlements, early sea voyages, and eventually the modern house cat, this is the story of how cats may have helped domesticate themselves.