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I found the quote I used on this while I was researching Sunday and Monday's entries for Diamond. I thought it very appropriate as domestic felines so quickly revert to their wild origins when allowed to run feral.

Many people know what dogs were domesticated from wolves, but what about cats? How did they come to live with humans? A study published in the July 2007 issue of the journal "Science" helps answer that question. Using genetic methods, scientists from the National Cancer Institute and the University of Oxford report that the origins of the common household cat can be traced back 100,000 years to ancestors in the Middle East. This much earlier than the earliest archaeological evidence of feline domestication that dates back 9,500 years to Cyprus.

By looking at the DNA of wildcats and domestic cats, the research team found five matriarchal lines from which all modern domestic cats have descended. Their ancestors, the Near Eastern (Asian) Wildcat (Felis Sivestris Ornata), still lives in Israel, Saudi Arabia and other Middle Eastern countries. It is believed that the domestic cat's ancestors become helpful to early farmers by hunting rodents and that domestication evolved out of the relationship between humans and cats. In turn, cats followed their human companions as they migrated across the globe.

It is still however, believed that domestic cats developed their long standing relations with humans in Egypt, and that the spread of domestic cats across the globe started with domestics smuggled out of Nile Region. (It was illegal to export a cat from Eqypt.)

I used the Wild Kingdom kit from Raspberry Road Designs on this piece.

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The optional theme for this weekend's Bad Kitty Cats Festival of Chaos is naptime, something which I figured couldn't be too hard to put together for any feline.

This uses the Spring Fling kit from Digital Freebies - again with the blue and purple scheme. You'd think I'd be sick of it by now, but...

Trixie the Destroyer


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I don't think Trixie is anything like she is portrayed online. She seems - judging from pictures, like a fairly nice, ordinary and lovable feline. Unless of course you put some ribbons or feathers in front of her.

Trixie is a 2 year old domestic shorthair. She was 9 months old and being held for adoption at the local vet's office. Her cuteness won the heart of a dog loving couple who returned the day after Christmas to take her to her home. Aside from Ebony, a 14-year-old mut, she shares her home with a year year old Albino Leopard Gecko, who fascinates her to no end.

I figured I'd do a few of my Pikapet friends for a change.

I used Raspberry Road Designs' Seventies Stylin' kit for this, a rather odd freebie that reminds me uncomfortably of this house I visited in New York with Beannie and Anna. It somehow works with Trixie's coloring. I doubt her house looks anything like this.

The lettering came from Free Digital Scrapbooking.