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Asked by to Thon, Catherine, James, Natalie, Shaylon on 19 Jun 2014. This question was also asked by .
Question: why do cats live interdependently when dogs always want company?
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Natalie Pilakouta answered on 19 Jun 2014:
Great question! It has to do with their evolutionary history. Wild cats (like leopards and pumas) are solitary, which means that they live and hunt alone. Wild canids (dogs) like wolves are social, which means that they usually live in groups and they hunt together and spend most of their time together. So even after cats and dogs were domesticated by humans, these characteristics of their close relatives are still there!
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James Bell answered on 19 Jun 2014:
Natalie beat me to it….as she says – most cats in the wild are solitary (although lions are an interesting exception) whereas most dogs are pack hunters (like wolves, african hunting dogs and hyenas).
Lions have evolved to being pack hunters so that they can take down bigger prey (like wildebeest) but it also allows them to dominate other big cat species. Lions will frequently chase cheetahs off a kill. It’s also partly to do with the fact that where lions live, prey is abundant and the prey populations can support larger groups of predators than the habitats of tigers or leopards. Clearly that’s not the only reason though as cheetahs, who are solitary hunters, live in the same areas
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Anthony Caravaggi answered on 19 Jun 2014:
Whether a carnivorous (meat-eating) species is social or solitary comes down to what works best when it comes to making sure there is enough to eat. As James says, bigger groups can hunt bigger prey animals and/or spread out over a wide area to find enough food for the entire group, as wolf packs often do. It makes sense to band together to hunt a zebra, gazelle or elephant (yes, there are lions which hunt elephants), but if there are others around and you usually eat very small birds? Well, none of you are going to have much to eat unless there are a lot of birds and they’re quite easy to catch.
Many seemingly solitary cat species can form groups when there is enough food around, though. Though unlike lions or wild dogs, these groups will split up when the food runs out. Cheetah will also form small groups. They’re almost always all-male, they’re often brothers (though not always) and they rarely get bigger than 3 individuals. These groups can stay together for some time, and there are cheetah groups which have learned to hunt prey which would be considered too dangerous to hunt alone.
As most dog species are social it may be that the ancestors of dogs were also social, and modern dogs which are more solitary, like jackals and coyotes, evolved to be that way later. With cats the opposite might be true. Most cats are solitary, so perhaps the ancestors of cats were solitary and grouping behaviour evolved later.
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