Talk:Cat

Semi-protected edit request on 8 April 2026

Within the grooming section, change "The cat's tongue has backward-facing spines about 0.5 millimeter long, called lingual papillae, which contain keratin making them rigid" to "The cat's tongue has backward-facing spines about 0.5 millimeter long, called filiform papillae, which contain keratin making them rigid"

This will correct the mistake and aline with the given source provided as evidence for this fact. Thank you Irish Violet (talk) 01:27, 8 April 2026 (UTC)

 Done – LuniZunie_(talk) 16:13, 10 April 2026 (UTC)

Shouldn't it also be "millimeters" and not "millimeter"? ClownPierce number 1 fan (talk) 07:00, 15 May 2026 (UTC)

It is not more than one millimeter long. Tbhotch^™ (CC BY-SA 4.0) 07:39, 15 May 2026 (UTC)

Yeah, but 0<1, and it's still "0 millimeters". ClownPierce number 1 fan (talk) 07:44, 15 May 2026 (UTC)

English plurals#Decimals are always plural Decimals are always Plural. King kobra2 (talk) 05:04, 28 August 2026 (UTC)

fixed. Meters (talk) 05:10, 28 August 2026 (UTC)

"Asocial aggression" listed at Redirects for discussion

The redirect Asocial aggression has been listed at redirects for discussion to determine whether its use and function meets the redirect guidelines. Readers of this page are welcome to comment on this redirect at Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion/Log/2026 July 15 § Asocial aggression until a consensus is reached. Steel1943 (talk) 04:24, 15 July 2026 (UTC)

Edit Request - Subject: Proposal to update conflicting nDNA/mtDNA phylogeny trees with unified consensus cladogram

This LLM-generated text has been collapsed and should be excluded from assessments of consensus.

The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.

Request

Please remove the two conflicting text trees in the "Phylogeny" subsection of the Evolution section, then replace with the following single consensus tree and clarifying note:

The consensus phylogenetic relationships of the genus Felis based on modern multi-locus and ancient genomic mapping are shown in the following cladogram:

Felis	F. chaus (jungle cat) F. nigripes (black-footed cat) F. margarita (sand cat) F. bieti (Chinese mountain cat) F. silvestris (European wildcat) F. lybica (African wildcat) F. catus (domestic cat)

While automated, genus-wide alignments of raw nuclear DNA can mathematically cluster F. catus next to F. silvestris due to ancestral incomplete lineage sorting and Pleistocene-era gene flow, targeted high-resolution regional sequencing confirms that both nuclear and maternal mitochondrial DNA consistently pair the domestic cat directly with its true ancestor, the North African / Near Eastern wildcat subspecies (Felis lybica lybica).

Rationale

Currently, the page displays two text-based ASCII cladograms that directly contradict each other—one showing the domestic cat as a sister taxon to the European wildcat (F. silvestris) via nuclear DNA and another showing it as sister to the African wildcat (F. lybica) via mitochondrial DNA. As currently formatted, this presentation can be highly misleading to general readers.

While early automated, genus-wide alignments of raw nDNA generated a tree clustering F. catus and F. silvestris, modern ancient genomics has demonstrated that this specific topology is a computational artifact. It is caused by deep ancestral incomplete lineage sorting and Pleistocene-era geographic hybridization, which artificially skew broad-scale algorithmic models when regional data isn't carefully partitioned.

Recent landmark whole-genome sequencing published in Science (Ottoni et al., 2025) explicitly demonstrates that when specific regional lineages are accounted for, both nuclear and mitochondrial data align seamlessly, solidifying Felis lybica lybica as the sole true ancestor of the domestic cat.

I propose replacing the two conflicting text trees with a single, universally accepted consensus tree along with a brief, fact-focused clarifying note underneath.

~2026-50877-42 (talk) 00:12, 21 September 2026 (UTC)

References

Not done: your request appears to have been generated by a large language model. Day Creature (talk) 23:57, 21 September 2026 (UTC)

Edit Request: remove incorrect statement from Evolution section

Text to be REMOVED

"Since there is no evidence of native mammalian fauna on Cyprus, the inhabitants of this village most likely brought the cat and other wild mammals to the island from the West Asian mainland."

Text to be ADDED

"Since there is no evidence of native cat species on Cyprus, the inhabitants most likely brought wild cats (Felis lybica) from the West Asian mainland."

Rationale

The original text is factually incorrect because prehistoric Cyprus did possess native mammalian fauna (such as endemic dwarf elephants and pygmy hippopotamuses). The lack of native fauna applies strictly to wild felines, which is why ancient humans had to transport them to the island.

~2026-50877-42 (talk) 01:56, 21 September 2026 (UTC)

Already done Day Creature (talk) 23:59, 21 September 2026 (UTC)

References