One of the most common pets is Felis catus, also known as the cat. Cats, for the most part, are known as cuddly creatures with four legs and a tail. But what makes a cat a cat? Cats go by many names and come in all sorts of colors, shapes and sizes. These adorable animals have an exceptionally long history dating back to around 7,500 BCE. This begs the question, how did we get to what we now call the domestic cat? Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on “Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned”? Get the original essay Cats are domesticated carnivores that weigh between five and twenty pounds. The average length of a cat is around twenty-eight inches and regardless of the breed of the cat, they all belong to the same species. Cats are known for their hunting abilities: “Domestic cats are natural hunters capable of stalking prey and pouncing with sharp claws and teeth” (National Geographic). Another of their well-known abilities is how they communicate with other cats by marking different objects such as trees or sofas. Marking is when a cat claims a territory by scratching or urinating on it. The history of domestic cats began in the Fertile Crescent, which is now known as primarily Western Asia. Residents of farms in these regions stored some of their crops in sheds, which attracted rodents. Due to the dense density of rodents on these farms, the cats lived close to the farm and fed on the rodents and waste produced by humans. Over time, cats evolved to live closer to humans and became increasingly domesticated. Because of their hunting abilities, they were brought aboard ships to feed on rats and were able to spread throughout the world. One of the first and best known places where traces of cats and people living together were found in ancient Egypt. Cats were considered divine animals. If someone killed a cat, the punishment would be death. Furthermore, it was extremely illegal to remove cats from Egypt: “The export of cats from Egypt was so strictly prohibited that a branch of the government was created solely to deal with this matter. Government agents were sent to other countries to find and return smuggled cats” (Encyclopedia of Ancient History). The goddess Bastet was the keeper of women's secrets, the home, fertility, childbirth, cats and protected people from evil and disease. She was usually depicted as a cat or a human with a cat's head. Thus, cats were considered turned away from the goddess and were worshiped. The safety of cats came before that of humans. We risked our lives to protect a cat. Once the cat died, its owners would go into mourning, often shaving their eyebrows as a sign of respect. The corpses were then transported to the city of Bubastis, or to another Egyptian city, where they were embalmed. Typically, cats would be mummified and stored with their owners in sacred places, ie. pyramids or tombs. Once Egypt became a providence of the Roman Empire, cats were also integrated into Roman culture. After cats were introduced to the Romans, they spread throughout Europe. Thousands of years later, cats boarded ships bound for the Americas. Reports./.