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It's Maria's MutS and Stuff. What
a great idea. On iHeart Radio,

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Welcome to Maria's MutS and Stuff with
me is evolutionary biologist Jonathan Losses. Jonathan,

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you are by far the smartest person
in the room. I have to

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tell you that right from the get
go. Well thank you. Well you

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are an evolutionary biologist I find incredible. But I know we are here to

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talk about the cats meowt how cats
evolve from the savannah to your sofa.

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And I know you've written other books, but tell me, because it's about

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cats. Was this your most fun
book to write? Absolutely? There is

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so much fun, cool information out
there about cats, and I learned a

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ton and then getting to write about
it it was just fantastically enjoyable. I'm

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sure like a labor of love,
right because obviously your cat person so sad

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to be this had to be incredible. So tell me what is something that

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and you because I just feel like
you you know so much, and especially

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about cats. What's something that you
discovered while writing this book that you never

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knew before. If there's one thing, it might be more, Well,

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there are many more. I learned
a lot, but the one that comes

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to mind. Is I think that
partly relates to the title of the book.

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To me, the quintessential feature of
a cat is it's meow. You

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know, That's what cats do,
and they meow to us. Anyone who's

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lived with the cat knows that the
cat is meowing and is trying to tell

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you something. Right. I always
assumed that cats meow to each other as

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a means of communication, and that
they had just expanded their social network to

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include us, right, But it
turns out research shows that that is not

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the case. That when people study
colonies of unknowned cats living outside and watch

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what they do, they do not
meow to each other very much at all.

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Really, the meow, the tendency
to meow to people is something that

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has evolved recently in the domestic cat
as part of the domestication process. Wow.

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And so I guess that could be
compared to how we always talk about

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you know, dogs came from wolves
and humans made them change over the years

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to become domesticated dogs. So is
that similar with cats, since the meow

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is more of a human thing,
is it is? Definitely? Well,

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let me qualify that. Okay,
all small species of cats meowm but they

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don't meow to each other, and
they don't meow to people in zoos when

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they're raised by people. So the
domestic cat has modified its behavior to use

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the meo as a way of communicating
with us. And they've actually changed how

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they meow. If you compare the
meal of the domestic cat to that of

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an African wildcat that's the ancestral species, the domestic cats meo is shorter and

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higher pitched. And when people here
there are asked to compare the two meos,

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not being told which which is which, they always rate the domestic cat

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is more pleasing that the sound of
the meow interesting. And so the cats

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have changed their meow to better better, to be better received by us.

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And that is one part of domestication, just like the traits that dogs have

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evolved, right right, And that's
kind of fascinating. I mean, I'm

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sure the general cat owner does not
know that. And that's where your book

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is coming, you know, that's
why they need to read your book,

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because to learn stuff like that.
I mean, I think it's pretty fascinating.

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So well, there's just all kinds
of yes, I agree, yes,

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but go ahead, you were going
to say they're all kinds of well,

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because they're just all kinds of things
about cats that I think people will

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be surprised to learn about and how
and how we know these things. How

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scientists there's a whole group of scientists
that specialize on studying the behavior and biology

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of domestic cats. And we've learned
an incredible amount, right, right,

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And so I mean back in the
day with cats. They because I mean

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we see cats, we see cats
in mummies and tombs. I mean from

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like a long, long, long, long time ago. So they've been

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around forever and evolved from Africa.
Correct, correct, Although they haven't actually

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been domesticated, Cats around nearly as
long as dogs have been. Cats were

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certainly domesticated by thirty five hundred years
ago in Egypt, and maybe a bit

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earlier. But dogs, by comparison, have been domesticated at least fifteen thousand

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years maybe even forty thousand years ago, So dogs were domesticated a lot earlier

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than cats are that the domestic cat
is a recent addition to the pantheon of

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domesticated animals. Do you think is
there a reason for that or it's just

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it is what it is. Well
domesticated, So dogs probably were domesticated while

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people were still hunter gatherer living in
a hunter gatherer sort of way. Cats

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weren't domesticated until we settled down and
started farming. And then what happened is

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we uh we you know, people
grew a lot of crops and stored them,

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and that attracted rodents, and then
the African wildcats started coming into villages

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to take advantage of all these rodents. And then we saw that they were

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beneficial and we treated them nicely,
and then they evolved to be even friendly

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or to associate with us more,
and eventually they were domesticated. But it's

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a result of our settling down and
living in villages, right right, And

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I mean, and of course you
say with rodents, and that's kind of

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a fact, right, if you
have a cat, you're not going to

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have mice in your house. I
mean, they're there. They are very

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good hunters. There's a consummate predators. So, yes, you have a

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cat, and the chances that you
will have mice as much less, right,

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That's yeah though, that's for true, that for sure. Actually,

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So I'm assuming like over the over
the years, all the breeds that we

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have what we currently have, we
did not have all the breeds of cats,

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I mean, to me, there
are so many, and I feel

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like that's evolved as well over the
years. Correct, Absolutely, most cat

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breeds have been developed in the last
fifty to sixty years. There are a

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few, so the idea of having
breeds of cats at all only goes back

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to the late nine late eighteen hundreds, but most most breeds were developed within

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the last seventy five fifty years or
so. Wow. Wow, And how

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many I mean, I don't know
how many would you say approximately breeds are

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today? Well, there are different
cat organizations that recognize different numbers of breeds,

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but the most, the most permissive
organization I think, recognizes about seventy

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three breeds of cats. Okay,
all right, Well that's fair and yeah,

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I mean, and that's a lot. That's a that's a pretty hefty

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number at this point, right,
yea. And many of them are just

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you know, slightly different hair texture
or color. But some of them are

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quite out there. There's a short
legged cat called the Munchkin, and there's

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the hairless cat called the Stinks that
people may be familiar with with. It

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was in the Austin Power movies and
so on. And there are a few

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other really kind of odd cats that
have been domesticated recently. Odd breathe right

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right, And can I ask you
how many cats you currently have? I'm

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just curious. We have. We
have four cats. One of them is

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at my foot right now w meowing
at me. But we have four cats

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and they keep us very busy.
Was there anything in your book that or

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was there anything about your cats that
you didn't realize until you started to do

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all the research. I mean,
I know we spoke about the meow,

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but until you started to do research
for your book. Yeah, well,

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there are a lot of things.
Yeah, my cats do do feature in

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the They have a starring role.
Probably the most unexpected thing to me was

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that one of my more recent cats, named Nelson, we got him a

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few years ago, and we got
him we bought a lot of toys to

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play with him, and after a
few months he was still a kitten,

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he started bringing the toys to me. He would walk across the room with

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the toy in his mouth. He
would drop it at my feet and then

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look up at me, I mean
clearly saying playtime. And then if I

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threw the toy across the room,
he would madly dash and get it and

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bring it back. He was fetching
the toy and I hadn't trained him to

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do that, he just did it
naturally. Well, I thought that was

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extraordinary. I'd never heard of such
a thing. I thought that he was

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the greatest cat in the world.
He is actually the greatest cat in the

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world. For other reason. And
you know, if I had all these

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ideas of taking him on the Tonight
Show or America's Got Talent or something,

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well, before doing that, maybe
I should just do a little investigation.

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And it turns out that people have
ducted surveys of people who live with cats,

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and these are not unusual traits.
Then about twenty percent of cat owners

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say that their cats will bring them
toys to play with and we'll fetch and

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so cats, some cats do that. But I had no clue of that

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until my own cat and Nelson started
doing it. Wow. And that's and

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it's just a random thing. I
mean, it just so happens, right,

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It's not it's not anything someone can
say, Oh, I'm going to

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adopt this cat and then they bring
it home and oh, look the cat

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is getting its toys. It's just
it might happen. It might not right.

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It's just a rant like it's like
a personality trait. I guess,

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yes, well that's exactly it.
It's you know why they do that.

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I mean, presumably it's a trait
that evolved as part of domestication for some

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reason. There are some breeds that
tend to do it more than others,

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so it's related to breed a little
bit. But it's not like all Siamese

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will do that or no Persian cats. It's you know, some in some

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breeds, some cats will do it
and others won't. Yeah, yeah,

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I mean and for people who are
I would say, for dog people,

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they would say, oh, that's
a cat, that's like a dog.

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You know what. People say that
sometimes. Yeah, In fact, we

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consider Nelson to be a dog and
cat's clothing. Yes, you look at

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him and he purrs, and you
come in the door, he comes running

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up to you. He's really very
dog. Why he is dogging? Yeah,

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I have to say that. I'm
a cat person. I've never really

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understood dogs until now. Now I
get it why people like dogs because they

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act like Nelson does. That's really
funny. So see you look at that.

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So your book not only is has
benefited cat people, but it's benefiting

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dog people as well, to teach
them about cats and cats that are like

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dogs. Yes, yes, exactly, No, it's perfect. Well,

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I just think it's it's first of
all, I love the cover. Is

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the cover one of your cats,
by the way, No, it's the

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publisher's got that cat. Okay.
I argued for my cats, but they

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said they could, they would,
they would get another one. There was

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actually there was never a doubt that
there would be a kitten on the cover,

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but that they came up with that
all right, But it's actually it's

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a very adorable kitten. I was
going to say, if that was you

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one of yours, adorable. But
I feel like the whole book is besides

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very informative, it's also it's done
in a fun way. I mean,

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obviously that was your intent to get
the facts out, but in a fun

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kind of way. Well, I'm
certainly glad that you felt that way,

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because that was my goal. You
know, as a scientist, this is

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not rocket science. I knew I
could explain it, but I wanted people

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to want to read it, to
find it interesting and enjoyable. And certainly

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the material is there, there's such
great stuff to write about it, and

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my goal was to do justice to
that material by making it fun to read.

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So I'm delighted you thought it was. Oh no, absolutely absolutely,

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And I have to be honest,
I like cats, but I'm more of

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a dog person. But your book
actually taught me more, taught me stuff

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about cats that I didn't know.
So when when it's it's for the cat

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lover, but it's also for anyone. I think it's for anyone who actually

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loves animals because it's very like I
said, you're the smartest person in the

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room, but you actually make it
very entertating for us. So that's very

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important. That's very good that you
did. Well. No, but it's

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true. But it's very very true
because sometimes there are books, and especially

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because like I said, you know, you're an evolutionary biologists. You're very

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smart. You're smarter than many people
who roam the earth. But you could

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read a paper or a book.
And for the person who isn't of the

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same you know, doesn't have the
same brain that you have, it's hard

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to read or understand, but you
made it. You made it very fun

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and informative, and I really I
did enjoy your book. So I just

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know it's good. So let me
just ask you this, because this was

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fun for you to write, do
you think you would do it again?

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Like another with all the research that
you did that maybe didn't make it to

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the book. Well, there is
a lot of other stuff to talk about.

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And I have enjoyed writing this book. I mean, I've I've spent

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my career being a scientist, and
I enjoy doing the research and writing scientific

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papers. But this is my second
book I've written for the general public,

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and I really enjoy doing so that
trying to make the information accessible and interesting.

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And as you said, there's a
lot of other material that didn't go

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into this book. There were topics
that I wanted to talk about and it

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was just too much, right,
So I could see writing another book that

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that might be fun to do.
Okay, good, and then maybe we'll

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you will put one of your cats
on the front, tell the boots that

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we want that excellent. I will
say. There's only one photo in the

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book, is the last illustration,
and it is one of my cats.

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Yes, that's true, that's true. And which one is that? By

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the way, that is Nelson's one
such toys very cute. Actually, one

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of the things I was very proud
of when they sent me the draft of

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the book, the Galley proofs that
laid it all out, and you know,

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I read it for typos and everything. I looked at the index which

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they put together, and they hadn't
mentioned Nelson or my other cats in the

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index. So I made them put
all my entries to my cats in the

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index. So if we want to
read the book and just read about my

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cats, it's easy to do.
See that, and that's on page three

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seventy seven. But the listeners will
really read your whole book before they go

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to the index. I think,
well, I couldn't argue with you.

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Okay, it's the cats, me
out how cats evolved from the Savanity your

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sofa, Jonathan Lasses, thank you
so much for chatting about it. Where

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can my listeners get the book?
Well, it's any bookstore, Amazon or

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independent bookstores. It should be on
sale everywhere. Excellent. Well, I

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thank you so much for talking about
the book. I thank you so much

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for writing the book and teaching me
and my listeners more stuff than we would

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know. And keep doing what you're
doing. And I hope to talk to

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you again, because you never know. Part two, Well, that would

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be great. This has really been
fun, Maria. I really appreciate you

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invited me on your show. La
has never been a Greader operator and this

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time to see you later for the
Gator