Shorthaired cats, Ragdoll cats, Maine Coons, Persians... there are more and more breeds of cats, but do you know what kinds of wild cats are not domesticated? If you don't know, they may become extinct.
The European wildcat (Felissilvestris) living in Europe and the domestic cat we are familiar with are two completely different species—domestic cats originated from the Near Eastern wildcat (Felislybica) in the Middle East and spread to all parts of the world with human migration. The European wildcat, on the other hand, is purely "native" and was forced to live with these "distant relatives" due to the arrival of humans.
Surprisingly, although European wildcats and domestic cats look very similar, a fossil DNA study of European wildcats found that they have hardly interbred in the past two thousand years. Although they lived together on the European continent, they kept to themselves and had almost no contact with each other.
However, as human settlements have expanded, the geographical distance between European wildcats and domestic cats has gradually disappeared—another genomic study of extant European wildcats and domestic cats found that the genome of European wildcats in the UK is becoming more and more "similar" to that of domestic cats.
In other words, the species that was called the European wildcat a thousand years ago is now nearly extinct in Britain.
Similar phenomena are quietly unfolding not only in Europe but also in China. Wildcats (Felisbieti) from the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau have also migrated there with domestic cats, interbreeding and blurring the lines between species.
This extinction event, caused by reproduction, was precisely a consequence of the expansion of human activities.
