The Lion in the Living Room - How House Cats Tamed Us and Took Over the World by Abigail Tucker (UK edition, paperback) - 9781501154478

    House cats rule back alleys, deserted Antarctic islands, and our bedrooms. Clearly, they own the Internet, where a viral cat video can easily be viewed upwards of ten million times. But how did cats accomplish global domination? Unlike dogs, they offer humans no practical benefit. The truth is they are sadly incompetent rat-catchers and pose a threat to many ecosystems. Yet, we love them still.     To better understand these furry strangers in our midst, Abby Tucker travels to meet the breeders, activists, and scientists who’ve dedicated their lives to cats.     Witty, intelligent, and always curious, Tucker shows how these tiny creatures have used their relationship with humans to become one of the most powerful animals on the planet. The appropriate reaction to a cuddly kitten, it seems, might not be aww but awe.  An adventure through world history, natural science, and pop culture in search of how cats conquered the world, the Internet, and our hearts.  Biographical NoteAbigail Tucker’s work has been featured in the Best American Science and Nature Writing series. She is the New York Times bestselling author of The Lion in the Living Room: How House Cats Tamed Us and Took Over the World, named a Best Science Book of 2016 by Library Journal and Forbes, now translated into thirteen languages. A correspondent for Smithsonian magazine, she lives in New Haven, Connecticut, with her husband and four (equally amazing) children.The Lion in the Living Room Chapter 1 CATACOMBS BUBBLING AWAY on Wilshire Boulevard in the middle of downtown Los Angeles, the La Brea Tar Pits look like pools of toxic black taffy. California colonists once harvested tar here to waterproof their roofs, but today these asphalt seeps are far more precious to paleontologists studying Ice Age wildlife. All kinds of fantastic animals mired themselves in the sticky death traps: Columbian mammoths with pretzeled tusks, extinct camels, errant eagles. But most famous of all are the La Brea cats. At least seven types of prehistoric feline inhabited Beverly Hills 11,000 years ago and earlier: close relatives of modern bobcats and mountain lions but also several vanished species. More than 2,000 skeletons of Smilodon populator—the biggest and scariest of the saber-tooth cats—have been recovered from the 23-acre excavation site, making it the largest such trove on the planet. It’s late morning. The asphalt is softening as the day warms and the air smells like melting pavement. Ugly black bubbles popping on the tar pits’ surface make it look as though a monster is breathing just beneath. My eyes water a bit from the fumes and, plunging a stick into the goo, I