Felis catus Linnaeus 1758

Wilson, Don E. & Reeder, DeeAnn, 2005, Order Carnivora, Mammal Species of the World: a Taxonomic and Geographic Reference (3 rd Edition), Volume 1, Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, pp. 532-628 : 534

Felis catus Linnaeus 1758

Felis catus Linnaeus 1758 , Syst. Nat., 10th ed., Vol. 1: 41 .

Type Locality: Listed as " Sweden " in Pocock (1951:6).

Vernacular Names: Domestic Cat.

Synonyms: Felis agria Bate 1906 ; Felis angorensis Gmelin 1788 ; Felis antiquorum J. B. Fischer 1829 ; Felis aureus Kerr 1792 ; Felis bouvieri Rochebrune 1883 ; Felis brevicaudata Schinz 1844 ; Felis caerulea Erxleben 1777 ; Felis cumana Schinz 1844 ; Felis daemon Satunin 1904 ; Felis domestica Erxleben 1777 ; Felis hispanica Erxleben 1777 ; Felis huttoni Blyth 1846 ; Felis inconspicua Gray 1837 ; Felis japonica J. B. Fischer 1829 ; Felis longiceps Bechstein 1800 ; Felis madagascariensis Kerr 1792 ; Felis megalotis Müller 1839 ; Felis pulchella Gray 1837 ; Felis rubra Gmelin 1788 ; Felis siamensis Trouessart 1904 ; Felis sinensis Kerr 1792 ; Felis striaas Bechstein 1800 ; Felis syriaca J. B. Fischer 1829 ; Felis tralatitia J. B. Fischer 1829 ; Felis vulgaris J. B. Fischer 1829 .

Distribution: Cosmopolitan. Specifically reported in: Albania, Belgium, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Crete, Croatia, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Italy, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Scotland, Serbia and Montenegro, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Turkey.

Conservation: CITES – specifically excluded from protection.

Discussion: Also see comments under Felis and Felis silvestris . Synonyms allocated according to Pocock (1951) and should be considered provisional. There has been almost universal use of F. catus for the domestic cat and silvestris for wild cats. Several authors have treated the domestic cat as separate from the wildcats ( Corbet and Hill, 1991; Daniels et al., 1998; Kitchener, 1991; Mattern and McLennan, 2000; Nowak, 1999; Pocock, 1951; Wiseman et al., 2000); however also see Randi and Ragni (1986), Essop et al. (1997), and Johnson and O’Brien (1997), who presented morphological and molecular evidence to support catus , libyca , and silvestris as conspecific. If conspecific, there would be a problem with the continued use of the name Felis silvestris (see comments therein).