DNA Analysis Offers New Insight In To Cat Evolution

The latest issue of journal Science has interesting info about cat evolution. The study by Warren E. Johnson and Stephen J. O'Brien is based on DNA analysis of the 37 living species. Their new family tree is based solely on changes in DNA, with the fossil record. Johnson-O'Brien team has been able to reconstruct a series of at least 10 intercontinental migrations by which cats colonised the world. Chris Wozencraft, an authority on the classification of carnivorous mammals, says the new cat family tree generally agreed with one that he had just published in Mammal Species of the World.