Research overview: the African wildcat as ancestor of the domestic cat

Genetic and archaeological evidence converge on the African or Near Eastern wildcat, Felis lybica, as the sole wild ancestor of all domestic cats. This overview explains how the foundational phylogeography of the wildcat complex showed that house cats nest within the Near Eastern lybica lineage, with domestication beginning in the Fertile Crescent as cats associated with early agricultural settlements. It discusses the implications for taxonomy, since the domestic cat is often treated as Felis catus, a domesticated form of the wild lybica, and for understanding why domestic cats remain so similar to their wild progenitor and can still interbreed with it. The piece highlights how this ancestry frames the wildcat conservation problem, where the descendant threatens the ancestor through hybridization.