246 The Famous Nature Magazine (2/2)

Pet King Jie Po 30090K 2022-07-19

”Look at this.”

Seeing is believing. Wei Kang knew that applied to most people. He took out his phone and opened up a webpage. All the English contents on the website gave Zhang Zian a headache, but he recognized it was the most famous website: nature.com.

”This is an article from Natural Magazine, published on June 19th, 2017. The author is the Eva-Maria Geigl Research Group from the University of Paris VII. Look at this picture.” Wei Kang scrolled down the page and enlarged a picture from the article.

The picture was clear and clean. There was a woman sitting on a chair where a dark striped cat was eating a fish underneath. Zhang Zian knew that he should’ve paid full attention to the cat, but he couldn’t help but stare at the woman’s smooth legs.

”This is an ancient mural from 3500 years ago.” Wei Kang pointed at the cat, ”Look carefully.”

”3500 years ago?”

Zhang Zian was shocked and thought that he had misheard.

”That’s right. 3500 years ago, which is 1500 B.C.,” Wei Kang said affirmatively. ”China was in the early stages of the Shang Dynasty at the time. Look, this is part of an ancient mural and it also serves as the most important evidence of cats that originated from Ancient Egypt. However, it is not a decisive evidence. Your cat shares a lot of similarity with the cat in the mural, and they are both very different than the ancient Egyptian cats today.”

Zhang Zian could tell immediately that the cat in the picture was completely different from modern Egyptian cats. Modern Egyptian cats mostly had spots all over them, but the cat in the picture looked the same as Fina, who had stripes.

Wei Kang knew that Zhang Zian was an expert in this topic, so he didn’t explain further on the differentiation. He simply explained, ”According to this article published on June 19th, since the beginning, wild cats were trained to be house cats. Until the 14th century A.C., ancient Egyptian cats had striped furs, just like the one in the picture. From the 13th century A.C. onward, their furs gradually turned into spots. That’s why ancient Egyptian cats had stripes while modern Egyptian cats have spots.”

Wei Kang answered Zhang Zian’s unasked questions. He was surprised how clearly Wei Kang could explain a complicated topic like that. Although the information might not be useful in daily life, maybe he could use it and pretend to be knowledgeable someday. Who knows?!

”Also, your cat has both stripes and spots, but mostly stripes with some spots. The cat in the picture has purely stripes and the modern Egyptian cats have purely spots. In other words, your cat was like the Archaeopteryx for cats. It was a very important transition in the evolution. I would call it a living fossil!” Wei Kang got more and more excited as he spoke.

Wei Kang was not young. Zhang Zian was worried that he would have a heart attack from being so excited.

Looking closely at the mural, Zhang Zian discovered another detail - modern Egyptian cats had five different colors: silver, bronze, dark grey, black, and blue/white. However, the cat on the mural looked golden, the same as Fina… or he should say, Fina looked the same as the picture because the cat in the picture lived at least 1500 years before Fina.

Not only was Zhang Zian curious, but Fina was too, so they both looked closely at the cat in the picture.

Zhang Zian finally understood how important Fina was to science. Fina could end the hypotheses and arguments on where house cats originated. Also, if Wei Kang could publish an essay using real evidence from Fina, he could become the most popular scientist overnight.

However, he could not agree without Fina’s permission.

”Professor Wei, how about I think about it at home?” He pushed it back so he had time to discuss with Fina and then make a decision.

Wei Kang sighed, ”That’s fine. May I have your contact?”

”No problem.”

Zhang Zian and Wei Kang exchanged contact information. Right then, Guo Dongyue’s ride arrived. The group and their animals got in the car and headed back to Binhai City.