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Are the Vikings to Blame for Cats? · Ridiculous History

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Speaker 1: Ridiculous History is a production of iHeartRadio. Welcome back to
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Speaker 1: the show Ridiculous Histories. Thank you so much for tuning in. Jeez,
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Speaker 1: we've got the energy here. We've got some meyows. That's
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Speaker 1: our super producer, mister Max Williams.
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Speaker 2: Yeow.
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Speaker 1: So you're Noel Brown, I've been bullet Nola. Is safe
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Speaker 1: to say that all three of us enjoy the feline.
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Speaker 2: Enjoy is a strong word. I know I do enjoy
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Speaker 2: a good cat, but they're a little caddy. Really. The
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Speaker 2: only way to describe on this is they just like
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Speaker 2: they don't care about us. You found, Max, you found
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Speaker 2: a really great quote from Winston church Hill himself that
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Speaker 2: dogs look up to us, cats look down on us,
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Speaker 2: and pigs treat us as equals. I'm not sure who
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Speaker 2: this is more insulting, too. I think it's the humans
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Speaker 2: that really come out on the losing end of this
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Speaker 2: particular expression.
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Speaker 1: I think he was probably insulting someone at a diplomatic function,
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Speaker 1: likely classic Winston. What was his other quote? You know,
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Speaker 1: someone said, you, sir, are drunk, and he said, very well,
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Speaker 1: but tomorrow I'll be sober and you'll still be ugly.
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Speaker 2: Yeah, And or it's good. But yeah, like we said,
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Speaker 2: cats are really like catty cat like not really, they
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Speaker 2: kind of are their own thing. You know if you've
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Speaker 2: seen the meme where it's like a cat like with
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Speaker 2: like bisecting and there's like a weird alien inside steering it.
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Speaker 1: Yeah, and cats also not to get to brain stuff
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Speaker 1: about it. Check out the earlier videos on domestication. Cats
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Speaker 1: are arguably one of the only quote unquote domestic animals
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Speaker 1: that domesticated themselves.
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Speaker 2: Of course they like them.
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Speaker 1: Yeah, that's classic cat. You may be surprised to realize
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Speaker 1: that given cats ancient history with humanity. Overall, cats are
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Speaker 1: pretty popular in most parts of the world. There is
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Speaker 1: purportedly one group of historical people that have perhaps popularized
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Speaker 1: our feline friends to the world overall. Caveat, caveat, caveat.
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Speaker 1: Let's go to Amy to Canon writing for Britannica, who says, quote, while.
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Speaker 2: Vikings don't exactly have a reputation for being cuddly, their
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Speaker 2: travel companions do. Yeah, I'm talking about cats. Vikings loved
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Speaker 2: a cat.
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Speaker 1: So in today's somewhat subjective and somewhat biased episode of
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Speaker 1: Ridiculous History, we're going to talk about the origins of
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Speaker 1: what we call the house cat, and how Vikings may
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Speaker 1: have helped spread the cat as a pet around the world.
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Speaker 1: Again caveat kind of this one is family friendly. So
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Speaker 1: if you happen like us to have some cats in
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Speaker 1: your household, listen in and let's see if your cat approves. Also,
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Speaker 1: send us cat photos on a ridiculous historians on Facebook.
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Speaker 2: They'll probably wander away halfway through. It's okay, we're not offended.
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Speaker 2: We see you. Take a quick word from a tiny sponsor,
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Speaker 2: and then we'll be back with this tale.
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Speaker 1: We have returned. One reason that we're going to be
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Speaker 1: brief with the history of cats is because A there
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Speaker 1: are multiple great pieces of scholarship written about it. B
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Speaker 1: there are tons of podcasts out there that are probably
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Speaker 1: just about cats and see cats like without even introducing
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Speaker 1: the toxoplasmosis argument. A lot of people who are on
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Speaker 1: board with cats right about them. So cats are in
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Speaker 1: the historical record in a way that many other animals
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Speaker 1: simply are not.
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Speaker 2: Yeah, and they're pictured in a lot of imagery surrounding
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Speaker 2: ancient civilizations. They figure into a lot of lore and
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Speaker 2: the kind of religious iconography as well.
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Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, If we go back to our pals of Britannica.
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Speaker 1: If we go way way back, Max, can we get
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Speaker 1: some way back music?
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Speaker 2: Perfect? Perfect? Oh, dang it.
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Speaker 1: All right, keep it it, Britannica says. After the non
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Speaker 1: avian dinosaurs became extinct, mammals became the dominant life forms.
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Speaker 1: The first feline like mammal, the prolurus, evolved about thirty
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Speaker 1: million years ago, and it is currently believed that all
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Speaker 1: true cat species evolved from this small guy who was
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Speaker 1: a predator who looked a lot like a civet. Do
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Speaker 1: we remember what a civet looks like.
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Speaker 2: Kind of like a cat like raccoon. They're pretty cute
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Speaker 2: and they're still around. Yeah, exactly. You can look up
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Speaker 2: a lot of pictures of civet. Some of them to
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Speaker 2: have i don't know, almost leopard like coats. Yeah, actually
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Speaker 2: most of them seem to have that pattern. Yeah.
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Speaker 1: Yeah, they're cool guys. And if you look at cats
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Speaker 1: that resemble today's friendly felines, they first appear about five
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Speaker 1: point three to three point six million years ago, And
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Speaker 1: it reminds me of the convergent evolution of the crab
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Speaker 1: like how most animal like many animals, at some point
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Speaker 1: tend to evolve into a crab like form, or like
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Speaker 1: how crocodiles hit they're winning formula and just never changed it.
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Speaker 2: If I mentioned to you that one of my nicknames
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Speaker 2: form my partner is the crab, she has evolved into
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Speaker 2: a crab like form, just tick with that and use
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Speaker 2: your imagination do what you will with it.
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Speaker 1: So a big thing with what we call the felids,
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Speaker 1: which is the group name felines fall under felid. The
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Speaker 1: big thing they have is I would say a flexibility,
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Speaker 1: a fluidity kind of natural inborn parkour cat like reflexes.
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Speaker 1: You might say, oh, just so, yeah, and there are
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Speaker 1: adaptations that occur. You can see many felids or felines
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Speaker 1: around the world who are evolved differently due to environmental pressures,
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Speaker 1: primarily the prey they chase. Because your average housecat is
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Speaker 1: an obligate carnivore, meaning that it must eat meat to
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Speaker 1: survive for sure.
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Speaker 2: And I think we've all probably seen, however, quote unquote domesticated,
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Speaker 2: your house cat might be given the chance to run
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Speaker 2: around outside, they're likely gonna find something to kill and
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Speaker 2: gift it to you.
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Speaker 1: Yeah, because they're worried about you. It's like our power lord, Yeah,
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Speaker 1: our Vogelbaum used to send me photos of the different
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Speaker 1: animals that her cat would kill into our outdoor cat
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Speaker 1: and bring to her sometimes in what she believed were
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Speaker 1: purposeful displays.
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Speaker 2: Oh, I had a cat that is no longer with
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Speaker 2: us years ago that I shared with my bestie and
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Speaker 2: roomy at the time, Frank. And it would, I swear
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Speaker 2: to God, it would be like Serial Killer tableaus, you know,
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Speaker 2: where it's like the mouse has been dissected and it's
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Speaker 2: dismembering parts are arranged in like a weird cruciform or
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Speaker 2: it's bizarre.
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Speaker 1: And so we know the we'll get to the vikings
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Speaker 1: in a second. What we need to established here first.
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Speaker 1: So we've got the ancient history, the evolution. Next, where
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Speaker 1: do the humans and the cats meet largely unclear, but
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Speaker 1: we know ever since recorded human history about fifteen ten
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Speaker 1: thousand years ago, with the rise of agriculture in the
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Speaker 1: Middle East, in the Tigris, Euphrates and so on, the
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Speaker 1: cat was always there. Definitely, people ate cats, Definitely, people
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Speaker 1: used cat fur as of pelt. But a partnership began,
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Speaker 1: and it was what we would call a symbiotic relationship,
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Speaker 1: meaning both sides of the partnership gained some value from
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Speaker 1: their interaction, humans were no longer a hunter gatherers. We're
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Speaker 1: all sitting in the same place. We're growing crops. We're
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Speaker 1: hoping those crops will keep us alive through winter. What
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Speaker 1: comes along with word grain rats, dude, rodents nice.
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Speaker 2: They love that stuff, especially if it gets moist or
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Speaker 2: whatever and starts to emit like a bit of a
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Speaker 2: stronger smell. You're gonna get some mice, some rodents, some rats,
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Speaker 2: and as we know, cats are really good at hunting
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Speaker 2: those guys down and torturing and murdering them.
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Speaker 1: Obligate carnivores again, So now the human outpost become a
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Speaker 1: easy way to find your own smaller prey. Right, it's
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Speaker 1: not necessarily that the cats liked the humans. It's that
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Speaker 1: it's that the cats liked a predictable food resource.
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Speaker 2: And that relationship is largely continued to the right.
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Speaker 1: It reminds me of the old, the old question that
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Speaker 1: is still debated in modern evenings. What is the most
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Speaker 1: successful life form on the planet. If you measure it
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Speaker 1: by wait, it may be the ants. If you measure
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Speaker 1: it by behavior, well, the housecats doesn't have to do
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Speaker 1: a lot of work for itself. As a matter of fact,
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Speaker 1: housecats are a menace to surrounded wildlife if they're outdoors.
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Speaker 2: Birds especially if I'm not mistaken right, they can actually
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Speaker 2: decimate entire populations of certain species. Yeah, they can endanger
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Speaker 2: worse than those wind turbines everyone's always screaming about.
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Speaker 1: I want a wind turban so bad.
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Speaker 2: I like Kyri, I like really going hard on calling
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Speaker 2: them a turban instead of tur I just something about
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Speaker 2: the mouthfeel if that doesn't for me.
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Speaker 1: So Eventually, way before people knew about toxo plasmosis gandhi,
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Speaker 1: people started worshiping cats. They attain socio religious significance. Cats
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Speaker 1: held a huge status in Egypt. There are even gods
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Speaker 1: that are that are anthropomorphic.
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Speaker 2: Cats, I would argue, do in no small part to
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Speaker 2: their mind controllabilities. Yeah.
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Speaker 1: Also they do protect the grain, They do protect the granaries.
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Speaker 1: So this is we can see why this would be
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Speaker 1: religiously important. Cats in each in Egypt were cherished pets.
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Speaker 1: They were seeing as sort of the protectors of life
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Speaker 1: and stability. They were good luck.
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Speaker 2: Well, I mean, anytime we see a force of nature
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Speaker 2: that either provides or has the potential to destroy food
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Speaker 2: sources or infrastructure, of these kind of civilizations. There often
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Speaker 2: is some religious connection that pops up, you know, a
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Speaker 2: bit of worship just to make sure that because if
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Speaker 2: we lost the cats, maybe the mice would take over everything.
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Speaker 2: There is that very functional kind of respect and appreciation
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Speaker 2: and need for these things that in the way they
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Speaker 2: kind of do business. The Egyptians converted would seem to
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Speaker 2: worship a kind of need to work worship them.
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Speaker 1: Yeah, Egyptian royalty was known to adorn their cats in
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Speaker 1: gold trappings people in the lower classes that not one
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Speaker 1: percenters made in war jewelry depicting cats. There are also
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Speaker 1: apocryphal accounts of Egyptian forces. Because Egypt was an expansionist
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Speaker 1: empire for a lot of times, there were apocryphal accounts
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Speaker 1: of Egyptian forces turning back and refusing to fight because
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Speaker 1: the opposing force strapped cats onto the bodies of the soldiers.
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Speaker 2: Oh my gosh, Kamakazi cats.
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Speaker 1: They were like, we can't kill the cats.
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Speaker 2: Oh, that's that's a very different kind of again, it's
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Speaker 2: like a reverse of that kind of apocryphal. Apocryphal. It's
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Speaker 2: like the cat equivalent of human shields.
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Speaker 1: It's bizarre, Yes, the cat equivalent the the other stuff
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Speaker 1: we do in terms of physical record of history is
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Speaker 1: that cats were deified such that they might be mummified
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Speaker 1: and preserved along with their loved ones, or if they
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Speaker 1: were a beloved cat. There were also little mouse mummies
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Speaker 1: that were mummified, So the cats had a snack in
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Speaker 1: the afterlife.
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Speaker 2: Do you think they just keep eating it over and
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Speaker 2: over and over again the one mouse that gets mummified.
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Speaker 2: It seems like a real hellish existence after LifeWise for
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Speaker 2: that roadent.
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Speaker 1: Huh, Yeah, not great for the mouse. Also, we know
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Speaker 1: cats have been clearly deified or prized in other cultures.
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Speaker 2: If you go back.
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Speaker 1: Not too far north in the Mediterranean, you'll see cretion
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Speaker 1: wall tiles dating back to sixteen hundred BCE that depict
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Speaker 1: cats who are trained to hunt for the humans.
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Speaker 2: Yeah, that's crete right, the island of crete in Greece.
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Speaker 2: That you also saw a lot of pictions in other
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Speaker 2: art and in literature that indicates cats were there from
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Speaker 2: the fifth century BC on. Now to mention in China,
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Speaker 2: where we also saw cats featured in some kind of
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Speaker 2: tile functional tiles from five hundred BC.
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Speaker 1: Yeah, and people in Arab populations and the nation of Japan,
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Speaker 1: they didn't meet the cat until about six hundred CE
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Speaker 1: as far as we know, which I do draw exception
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Speaker 1: to the scholarship they're regarding Arab communities because the Middle
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Speaker 1: East is not that far away from Egypt. So I
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Speaker 1: do believe what we're looking at there is just physical record.
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Speaker 1: The earliest again record of cats, if you go a
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Speaker 1: little further north in Britain, dates to about nine to
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Speaker 1: thirty six CE, when the Prince of South Central Wales
15:00
Speaker 1: sounds like every time I hear south Central, I feel
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Speaker 1: like the guy has a rap album. But Uedel Da
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Speaker 1: made a law protecting cats. Specifically, you can kill other animals.
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Speaker 1: Badgers are fair game, but guys be cool about the cats.
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Speaker 2: Cool cats, be cool cats.
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Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, And this is where it gets us to
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Speaker 1: the turnin aal to the focus of today's episode.
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Speaker 2: Vikings cats, Yeah, it would seem like not necessarily a
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Speaker 2: match made in Valhalla. As we mentioned, Vikings are not
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Speaker 2: particularly known for their cuddly and animal loving natures, but
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Speaker 2: you know what, cats, that's sort of a bit of
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Speaker 2: a misnomer about them too. They can be pretty vicious,
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Speaker 2: with the whole serial killer displays and just the inherent
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Speaker 2: carnivorous nature.
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Speaker 1: Yeah, a cat is sort of a Viking when you
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Speaker 1: think about it.
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Speaker 2: Yeah, especially when you put those horned helmet on it
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Speaker 2: and give it a little braid. Yeah.
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Speaker 1: Oh yeah, you've seen doctor Vankman. That's the name of
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Speaker 1: one of my cats. So Vikings, like sailing. The domestic
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Speaker 1: house cat is notoriously statistically not going to be a
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Speaker 1: fan of water. The issue is the size of the boats.
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Speaker 1: If we go to Weston Williams writing for Christian Science Monitor,
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Speaker 1: we see that Egyptian cats were often taken a board
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Speaker 1: watercraft to deal with mice and rats. So it makes
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Speaker 1: sense if your ship is large enough to have a cat,
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Speaker 1: who is your ratting officer?
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Speaker 2: You know?
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Speaker 3: Yeah, if I can jump in real quick. I actually
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Speaker 3: learned this when I was younger, so I think I've
16:50
Speaker 3: told you all. My dad grew ubout boat doc. Basically
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Speaker 3: like he grew up on a lake in this Great
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Speaker 3: Lakes Chain up in Michigan, and I remember like talking
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Speaker 3: to him saying something about kats on. It's like, Dad,
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Speaker 3: why would a cat ever be on a boat? And
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Speaker 3: he told me this fact. I'm like, oh, that makes sense.
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Speaker 3: They mus not like it when the boat goes down,
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Speaker 3: and he's like Max, no one likes when the boat
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Speaker 3: goes down.
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Speaker 2: Well, that''s all the true. And in my mind I'm
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Speaker 2: thinking too, like this would be largely while the boats
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Speaker 2: are docked, right, or would there be a seafaring cat
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Speaker 2: that would like go out on the voyage.
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Speaker 1: There are seafaring cats even now. Some of the most
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Speaker 1: famous seafaring cats in uh other wars in World War
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Speaker 1: One and World War Two, they were they were considered
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Speaker 1: part of the crew and they also got promoted if
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Speaker 1: they killed enough.
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Speaker 2: Vermin, I love the idea of a seafaring cat wearing
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Speaker 2: a little naval uniform and like steering the ship, you know,
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Speaker 2: behind the giant wheel.
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Speaker 3: I know we have an episode about that years back now,
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Speaker 3: I don't remember how long ago, but about a heroic
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Speaker 3: animals and a lot of them were cats.
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Speaker 1: M h they were. They know what's going on. So
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Speaker 1: let's go to Eva Marie Geigel, who is a paleo
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Speaker 1: geneticist at the Institute jus Manolde. And this person led
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Speaker 1: one of the biggest studies about the interaction of cats
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Speaker 1: with the early humans. It was published in Nature dot com.
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Speaker 1: It's the palaeogenetics of Cat dispersal in the ancient world.
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Speaker 1: It's gourse, it's got yeah, it's got a lot of authors.
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Speaker 2: And they told ABC in an interview, we found the
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Speaker 2: first time that in prehistoric times, cats from the Near
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Speaker 2: East and in classical times from Egypt accompanied people on
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Speaker 2: their journeys, thereby conquering the ancient world. They were the
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Speaker 2: ancestors of our present day domestic cats all over the world.
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Speaker 1: And the study is pretty smart. They analyzed mitochondrial DNA
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Speaker 1: from the remains of cats across Europe, the Middle East,
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Speaker 1: and Africa. They looked at two hundred cat to davers
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Speaker 1: cat davers, and the cats lived anywhere from fifteen thousand
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Speaker 1: years ago to the seventeen hundreds. The cats that had
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Speaker 1: that mitochondrial DNA indicating origin in Egypt. They were found
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Speaker 1: as far north as Viking sites, especially one in northern
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Speaker 1: Germany dating between the eighth and eleventh century. And let's
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Speaker 1: pause here to bust a myth. The Vikings were not
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Speaker 1: just picking on northern Europe. They made it to northern America,
19:30
Speaker 1: they made it to Greenland and Iceland. They had extensive
19:34
Speaker 1: or they were part of an extensive trade network going
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Speaker 1: down to North Africa, going out to western Eurasia.
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Speaker 2: They got around.
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Speaker 1: It's not just some dudes on a boat having a
19:47
Speaker 1: bad day, doing psychoactive substances and behaving as though they
19:52
Speaker 1: were angry bears.
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Speaker 2: Shout out deserved zo angry bears. Wasn't that like a
19:56
Speaker 2: phone game? No, that's angry birds. I'm sorry. Angry bears
19:59
Speaker 2: is good, though we can't get sued. Surely they did
20:03
Speaker 2: flappy bird, you know, it's close enough.
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Speaker 1: The Vikings did wear cat pelts, probably when the cat died.
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Speaker 1: They didn't have the same reverence as the rulers of
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Speaker 1: ancient Egypt. However, we do know that cats were an
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Speaker 1: important part of Norse mythology, especially because of Freya, the
20:26
Speaker 1: goddess of love. They were super into carriages for their
20:31
Speaker 1: like Nordic countries were super into carriages. So Freya had
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Speaker 1: two cats that pulled her carriage and powerful cats. Man right,
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Speaker 1: and there's another myth we wanted to shout out in particular.
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Speaker 2: Oh, just that, I think it's interesting. In thor in
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Speaker 2: you know, Norse mythology, visited Outgard. He attempted to lift
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Speaker 2: Loki's cats outguard Loki's cat, and it actually turned out
20:58
Speaker 2: to be the mid guard serpent or the world serpent
21:01
Speaker 2: you might remember from the God of War game. I
21:05
Speaker 2: believe it's the third one God of War Valhalla, if
21:08
Speaker 2: I'm not mistaken that I still haven't finished, but there's
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Speaker 2: this crazy serpent that encircles the world, and I believe
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Speaker 2: that's the mid Guard Serpent. Also, Freya is an important
21:16
Speaker 2: character in that game as well, And I want to
21:19
Speaker 2: say at some point in the God of War games
21:21
Speaker 2: you do meet some kind of giant cat, but maybe
21:26
Speaker 2: I'm misremembering that. But it's a very cool game and
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Speaker 2: certainly takes some liberties with the mythology, but has some interesting,
21:31
Speaker 2: you know, kind of bits in there that you might
21:33
Speaker 2: find interesting if you're into this kind of stuff.
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Speaker 1: And out Guard Loki, to be clear, is not the
21:39
Speaker 1: same as Loki Loki. Out Guard Loki is. I guess
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Speaker 1: it would translate to like the trickster of the Outlands.
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Speaker 1: He's a Jotna, I believe they call it, which is
21:51
Speaker 1: somewhat kind of similar to a nepheline.
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Speaker 2: Different show. But then there's Jodenheim as well, which is
21:58
Speaker 2: the Land of the Giants game as well, which I
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Speaker 2: think is also accurate mythology.
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Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, and so if we're asking what these cats
22:07
Speaker 1: look like. You might be listening to this episode with
22:12
Speaker 1: doing your what's the bad guy the inspector gadget?
22:17
Speaker 2: Doctor Claw?
22:17
Speaker 1: Doctor Stan nailed it, thank you. Doctor Claw always has
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Speaker 1: a cat on his arm rest. If you are in an.
22:24
Speaker 2: It all comes from Blowfelds and James Bonds, and you
22:26
Speaker 2: know doctor Evil has the cat and stroking the cat.
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Speaker 2: It's it's a classic villain thing.
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Speaker 1: If you're stroking the cat like one of our favorite
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Speaker 1: villains right now, you may be wondering, Hey, did these
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Speaker 1: Viking cats look like my little chonker? Uh? Not really?
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Speaker 2: Yeah, I mentioned earlier that I love the idea of
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Speaker 2: of them having a horned helmet and sporting a little
22:56
Speaker 2: cat beard or at the very least a braid. But
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Speaker 2: not only did they not deck them out in that way,
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Speaker 2: they would not have exactly resembled what we know as
23:05
Speaker 2: the domestic fewline today.
23:07
Speaker 1: Yeah, they would have been smaller, which makes a little
23:10
Speaker 1: bit of sense. If you go to if you go
23:13
Speaker 1: to Sarah Pruit from History, or if you go to
23:16
Speaker 1: our pal Emily Underwood, you will find that domestic cats
23:19
Speaker 1: in Denmark especially have increased significantly in size since the
23:25
Speaker 1: Viking Age. Most animals tend to become smaller when they
23:31
Speaker 1: are domesticated. That's why dogs are almost always smaller than wolves.
23:37
Speaker 2: Interesting, but in the case of the cats, sort of
23:39
Speaker 2: the opposite thing occurred, right, It's interesting. I don't quite understand.
23:43
Speaker 1: Why they've grown about sixteen percent bigger on average since
23:49
Speaker 1: what we call the Viking Era.
23:51
Speaker 2: Yeah, Emily Underwood in that study we mentioned before, had
23:54
Speaker 2: this to say about it. By two hundred CE, the
23:56
Speaker 2: people of Iron Age, Denmark, were keeping cats charred human
24:00
Speaker 2: bones in a cremation grave. From that period, researchers discovered
24:04
Speaker 2: a cat ankle bone with a drill hole, suggesting it
24:07
Speaker 2: was worn as an amulet.
24:09
Speaker 1: Yeah, the Viking the quote continues, the Vikings, who were
24:12
Speaker 1: farmers as well as seafairy marauders. They raised cats for
24:17
Speaker 1: their warm fur and to control pests. So by about
24:21
Speaker 1: eight fifty to ten fifty CE, cat pelts started bringing
24:25
Speaker 1: a high price in Denmark. There was also the study
24:29
Speaker 1: doesn't get super into this, but there was also still
24:32
Speaker 1: that old Egyptian influence, the idea, the idea that a
24:39
Speaker 1: cat could be good luck.
24:41
Speaker 2: One percent pro It continues. As time went on, cats
24:44
Speaker 2: spread to rural settlements and estates as well as towns,
24:48
Speaker 2: and as the new study shows, they began to grow
24:51
Speaker 2: in size, fascinating. While it's not yet clear why exactly
24:54
Speaker 2: this growth occurred, so okay, no one knows, it was
24:57
Speaker 2: a good question. It may have something to do with
24:59
Speaker 2: increase access to food, okay, and better living conditions, especially
25:04
Speaker 2: after more and more people began treating cats as beloved
25:07
Speaker 2: house pets rather than strictly rodent hunters or sources of fur.
25:11
Speaker 2: Ben I would pose the question though, but that's the same.
25:15
Speaker 2: That's also true of dogs. And yet dogs got smaller.
25:19
Speaker 1: Dogs got smaller, but dogs also, Oh, let's do an
25:22
Speaker 1: episode on domestication.
25:25
Speaker 2: Oh, absolutely, going on the list.
25:27
Speaker 1: All right, well, I'm putting it on the list now.
25:30
Speaker 1: And while we're while we're talking about this, we have
25:34
Speaker 1: to say again, it does appear that vikings had an
25:39
Speaker 1: intense relationship with cats, and vikings, you know, got around,
25:46
Speaker 1: and when they got around, they had to bring their
25:48
Speaker 1: cats living or dead. We know that, we know that
25:54
Speaker 1: increased consistent access to food over time does lead to
26:01
Speaker 1: in some cases, it does lead to a larger body size.
26:06
Speaker 1: We know, for instance, if you look at the Korean peninsula.
26:09
Speaker 1: In the case of the humans, access to food during
26:13
Speaker 1: formative growth periods and adolescents makes a big difference in
26:17
Speaker 1: your size and your height.
26:19
Speaker 2: When this isn't to say that these were just chunkier cats,
26:22
Speaker 2: and this is an evolutionary right, bigger frame in general. Right,
26:26
Speaker 2: And you know, we certainly have little cats today. But
26:30
Speaker 2: then we also have like the kind of cats that
26:31
Speaker 2: I think are in your stable, the mancoons, the really
26:36
Speaker 2: big chunky boys that are absolutely gorgeous, but like kind
26:39
Speaker 2: of dog like in their frames and in their behaviors.
26:44
Speaker 2: Got oh interesting, So they're a little more loyal are
26:46
Speaker 2: they're a little less cat purely cat like man?
26:51
Speaker 1: You know, everybody is their own I guess if I can.
26:55
Speaker 3: Jump in real quick one funny. So Sylvia is incredibly
26:59
Speaker 3: cat then at the same time non cridly cat. One
27:02
Speaker 3: of the weird like dog like traits she does is
27:04
Speaker 3: she like waits at the door for me, so like
27:08
Speaker 3: when I get home, she's at the door. If I
27:09
Speaker 3: go out for a walk, Like we have these glass
27:11
Speaker 3: doors on our back porch, and if I go on
27:13
Speaker 3: a walk, I usually go out there and come back
27:15
Speaker 3: and she'll be sitting right there. Waiting for you. She's
27:18
Speaker 3: an indoor only cat.
27:19
Speaker 2: She's just waiting for you to die so she can
27:21
Speaker 2: eat your eyeballs. Actually, the dogs are faster to do that,
27:25
Speaker 2: is that right? I love my cats, but they also
27:30
Speaker 2: scare me a little bit. I'm not gonna lie.
27:32
Speaker 1: It's also unpleasant that I know that fact. But guys,
27:34
Speaker 1: just don't die around your pets. Parties find at parties,
27:39
Speaker 1: thank you, nol. We also know, we also know that
27:44
Speaker 1: cats have a kind of body size awareness that differs
27:50
Speaker 1: from the body size awareness of humans.
27:54
Speaker 2: This is a term that I'd never run across before.
27:57
Speaker 2: This is a whole kind of school of thinking. This
27:59
Speaker 2: is this idea of body size awareness, and that's exactly right,
28:03
Speaker 2: like how it can inform the way a creature moves.
28:08
Speaker 1: Yeah, the cats are famous for being able to maneuver
28:12
Speaker 1: their bodies through apertures that would land on their feet. Yeah,
28:17
Speaker 1: for landing on their feet. Again to the point about parkour, right,
28:21
Speaker 1: cats a very good at parkour. And cats also are
28:25
Speaker 1: more flexible when it comes to getting into an aperture.
28:29
Speaker 1: And also you know that's how they can get into
28:36
Speaker 1: the mousehole. You know what I mean?
28:37
Speaker 2: I mean, dude, even my fattiest of catties can do
28:41
Speaker 2: some serious leaping and with precision, you know. And it's
28:45
Speaker 2: no accident that this idea of cats having nine lives
28:49
Speaker 2: is such a thing, because they really do land on
28:51
Speaker 2: their feet and they can jump from heights and not
28:54
Speaker 2: be injured.
28:54
Speaker 1: It's a lot of fur also, and I appreciate you
28:59
Speaker 1: shout out, oh the cat with a thousand names, and
29:03
Speaker 1: then also doctor Vankman, because they're chonky boys. They've got
29:07
Speaker 1: a lot of fur and they've got a lot of
29:09
Speaker 1: muscle behind it.
29:10
Speaker 2: But I and a lot of heart.
29:12
Speaker 1: Sure, But we also know, we also know there's a
29:18
Speaker 1: great deal of cat folklore which might be an interesting
29:22
Speaker 1: second part to this episode. We can't wait to hear
29:26
Speaker 1: everybody else's or we can't wait to see everybody else's
29:31
Speaker 1: cat photos. Fellow Ridiculous historians hit us up on our
29:34
Speaker 1: Facebook page, Ridiculous Historians. Also, big big thanks to our cats,
29:40
Speaker 1: Big big thanks to our super producer and research associate
29:43
Speaker 1: for today's episode, mister Max Williams.
29:45
Speaker 2: Absolutely big big thanks to the love cats of the
29:48
Speaker 2: Cure Fame.
29:49
Speaker 1: You know, I love that song, Big big thanks to
29:52
Speaker 1: the cool cat Alex Williams, who composed this.
29:55
Speaker 2: Track Ah Yes one of the coolest, as well as
29:59
Speaker 2: to Christopherciotis names Jeff Coates here in Spirit, Jonathan Strickland
30:04
Speaker 2: and A. J. Bahamas Jacobs, the Quistor and Puzzler respectively.
30:09
Speaker 1: Yes, Yes, Big, big thanks to Rachel Big Spinach Lance Big,
30:13
Speaker 1: Big thanks to Sylvia Kromi, Vanessa, Doctor Venkman and of
30:17
Speaker 1: course the Cat with a thousand Names.
30:20
Speaker 2: One thousand tales. We'll see you next time, folks. For
30:30
Speaker 2: more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
30:34
Speaker 2: or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.