The Domestic Cat: The Biology of Its Behaviour

Front Cover
Dennis C. Turner, Paul Patrick Gordon Bateson
Cambridge University Press, Jun 8, 2000 - Nature - 244 pages
Humans have lived with cats for thousands of years, and there are now more cats kept in Western households than any other animal. Cherished as companions and valued as rodent catchers, their enigmatic behavior has intrigued and bewildered us for generations. While accepting the comforts of human homes, cats do seem to "walk by themselves." Although loved for their independence and self-reliance, myths and fables surround them, leaving them open to persecution and misunderstanding. Covering all types of cats from pampered pets to feral hunters, this completely revised new edition of The Domestic Cat shows how cats live and behave in a variety of circumstances and surroundings. With new chapters on welfare issues, and cat-cat communication, this volume penetrates the enigma that is Felis catus, sorting fact from fiction, and helping both the general reader and the specialist in animal behavior or veterinary science to understand cats as they really are.
 

Contents

Cats and people 177
6
Behavioural development in the cat
9
Factors influencing the motherkitten relationship
23
origins development and stability
47
The signalling repertoire of the domestic cat and its undomesticated relatives
67
its sociobiology and epidemiology
95
Density spatial organisation and reproductive tactics in the domestic
119
Hunting behaviour of domestic cats and their impact on prey populations
151
Domestication and history of the cat
179
Questions about cats
229
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