Research overview: ships' cats and the maritime dispersal of cats

Cats spread across the globe largely as working passengers on boats, where they controlled rodents that ate cargo and gnawed rigging. This overview synthesizes archaeological, genetic and historical evidence for maritime dispersal, including ancient DNA recovered from port sites and the Egyptian maternal lineage that radiated across the Mediterranean and into northern Europe along trade routes. It covers the spread of cats to oceanic islands and the New World during the age of exploration, with consequences both economic, as pest control, and ecological, as cats became invasive predators on naive island faunas. The survey illustrates how a small commensal carnivore achieved a near-global distribution by exploiting human transport networks rather than expanding under its own power.