ANIMALS
Cat brains are shrinking, and it’s humans’ fault
WORDS BRANDON SPECKTOR
Thousands of years of human dependence has shrunk your cat’s brain. Researchers compared cranial measurements – an indicator of brain size – of modern house cats with that of two of their closest wild ancestors, African (Felis lybica) and European wildcats (Felis silvestris). The team found that cranium size, and therefore brain size, in domesticated cats has shrunk significantly over the past 10,000 years or so compared with their wild ancestors.