Talk:Felis

Felis daemon

I found this source that considers Felis daemon as conspecific with Felis silvestris caucasica rather than Felis (silvestris) catus.

" Black felids similar to Kellas cats have also been reported in Transcaucasia in 1904 when they were defined as a new species, Felis daemon, which was renamed Felis silvestris caucasica in 1973."

That would be odd, since there's already an article on Felis silvestris caucasica and its clearly a tabby wildcat. Is Felis daemon a melanistic form of wildcat, or a hybrid with domestic cats similar to the Kellas Cat?

Schvass (talk) 17:39, 8 July 2014 (UTC)

So far as I can tell, nobody's seen any since Satunin described them in 1904. So it's hard to say. Not being able to read Russian, I can't confirm the information currently in the article, but it sounds plausible. Certainly nobody thinks they're a species (or even subspecies) any more. Anaxial (talk) 17:57, 8 July 2014 (UTC)

I'm reading an English translation from the page, and it mentions the possibility that Felis daemon is a black feral cat, a melanistic wildcat, or a domestic/wild hybrid like the Kellas Cat.

"It was classified as Felis daemon, but demoted to the status of feral domestic cat or melanistic Caucasian wildcats. ... is probably an introgressive hybrid of wildcat and domestic cat. "

There's also another report that corroborates the theory of a hybrid black wildcat.

It's interesting how Felis silvestris lybica also shares a range in the Caucasus.

Schvass (talk) 18:24, 8 July 2014 (UTC)

phylogeny chart is wrong

Phylogeny chart shows domestic cat to be the most closely related to the European wild cat but it is most closely related to the African wild cat. 95.168.120.37 (talk) 07:53, 26 August 2023 (UTC)

If you have a better source (the one currently used is from 2006, so that's quite possible), by all means, provide it.Anaxial (talk) 08:43, 26 August 2023 (UTC)

This is problematic. The studies using a broad range of species tend to get the sister relationship with the European wild cat, while those focusing on wild cats show the relationship with the African wild cat, but have limited outgroups. The former tend to use nuclear markers with limited sampling while the latter uses Mt-DNA with extensive sampling. Also the latter find bieti nested in the wild cats or even in lybica. I agree it probably needs a newer source, but it's not clear what to use. —  Jts1882 | talk  09:52, 26 August 2023 (UTC)

Well, if the sources don't agree with each other, then we should document that they don't. (After finding newer material probably, and finding that it still conflicts.)  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  22:09, 26 August 2023 (UTC)

Diverged from what?

In the table each species has a number that says how long ago it diverged. But diverged from what? From the closest sister species? From domestic cat? From the root? You can't make sense of the number unless cross-referenced with the phylogeny tree, and to an avereged reader it gives the wrong impression of branches diverging from a non-existent trunk. Even when specified, the numbers don't mean anything. Those that diverged "earlier" are not "older", it only means that they don't have more species diversity within that lineage, making the branch longer. Also those numbers are not referenced, and the use of special font colour for those numbers doesn't appear to comply with Wikipedia manual of style. C9mVio9JRy (talk) 03:08, 3 January 2026 (UTC)