Document type : Podcast of the programme La Méthode scientifique broadcast on France Culture (58 min)
Authors: Nicolas Martin, Eric Vidal, Eva Maria Geig
Preview: Between Canis Lupus and Canis Lupus familiaris, 40,000 years of co-evolution, human selection and speciation mean that today, while it would be theoretically possible for a Yorkie to mate with a wild wolf, it is quite hard to imagine it actually happening. The same is not true of Felis Silvestris, and Felis Silvestris Catus, the domestic cat, a subspecies of the wild cat, whose history became entwined with that of the human species much more recently, about 10,000 years ago. Since that time, cats have evolved very little, just about learning to tolerate humans better, which begs the question of who has done the taming and who has been tamed.
Cats and their pet humans, that's the feline topic on the agenda for the next hour.
And to retrace the evolutionary history of the cat and understand how it has adapted to us (unless the adaptation goes the other way) we are pleased to welcome Eva Maria Geigl, Research Director at the CNRS and co-leader of a palaeogenomics team at the Institut Jacques Monod in Paris, and Elsa Bonnaud, Lecturer at the University of Paris Saclay at the Laboratoire Ecologie Systématique et Evolution.
