House Cats' Wild Ancestor Found

LiveScience has a story on the ancestor to the modern housecat.

Domestic cats have been traced back to a single wild ancestor whose relatives still live in the remote deserts of the Middle East today.

The transformation of a vicious predator into a docile tabby took place some 10,000 years ago, a new genetic analysis suggests. That is the same time humans adopted an agricultural lifestyle in the Fertile Crescent. So the first of the friendly cats likely acted as a mouse hunter for grain-storage areas.