News Animals

Ancient DNA rewrites the tale of when and how cats left Africa

Cats were domesticated in North Africa, but spread to Europe only about 2,000 years ago

An ancient cat's skull is shown on a black background.

This 2,000-year-old skull is one of the earliest belonging to a domesticated cat in Europe. New DNA analyses reshape scientists' understanding of when domesticated cats arrived on the continent.

Rudolf Gold, 2003

By Jake Buehler

This is a human-written story voiced by AI.