These cute animals are thought to have originated in Anatolia 10 thousand years ago.
Cats, which can be seen on all continents in the world except Antarctica, are thought to have spread 10 thousand years ago from today’s Turkey.
DNA analyzes indicate that the ancestors of cats probably came from here and that the first farmers used these animals to fight rodents.
As the agricultural revolution spread around the world, cats were also a part of it and reached Cyprus in 2500 BC.
In the next few centuries, they were introduced to Bulgaria and Romania by humans, and then spread to Egypt.
Here the animals were highly valued by the Egyptians; the locals valued cats as a sign of nobility and wealth.
Later, the Romans and Vikings carried the increasingly popular Egyptian cats back to their countries on their ships to fight pests.
Cats then spread throughout Africa, Europe and Asia. Finally, with the discovery of America, they were carried across the ocean by humans on ships.
Today, it is thought that every third house in the US has at least one cat and the total number of cats in the country is 93.5 million.
Source: Independent Turkish
