What is the breed of Indian cats or domestic cats?

Published on: Wed May 15 2024

Short answer

The short answer to this question is mixed breed. A mixed breed cat is commonly called a house cat or a domestic cat. In some countries they are known by local names, like Moggie (in UK) and Billi or more specifically Indian Billi, in India.

Domestic cats belong to the subspecies Felis sylvestris catus.

If you want to understand why they are not called a specific breed, then continue reading.

What makes a breed anyway?

Before we proceed, it’s important to understand that a breed is not the same as a species. A species is a group of living beings that may breed together to generate a healthy offspring. Whereas a breed is a categorization within a species, based on certain characteristics.

For example, all dogs belong to the same species, but they can be of different breeds. They all can naturally inter-breed and make babies. If the parent dogs are of different breeds, resulting offspring can have a quite distinct set of characteristics than both of its parents. Such offspring belongs to mixed breed.

But when it comes to breeding between species, called inter-breeding, it’s not so simple. Under normal conditions, it just doesn’t happen. And when humans create the circumstances to make it happen, the offspring is usually short lived and infertile. For example, the hybrid of a lion and a tiger, called Liger. Another example is a hybrid of a horse and a donkey, called a Hinny / Mule.

A brief history of cats

Earlier we used to believe cats were domesticated around 3,600 years ago in Egypt. However, researchers have now found evidence of feline domestication in Middle East that occurred 10,000 years ago. One of the key pieces of evidence is a 9,500-year-old grave found in Cyprus, which contained remains of a human and a cat, together. This grave led to the assumption that domestication of cats must have begun before this time, because there were no native cats in Cyprus.

Around 2,900 years ago, cats became something more, a symbol of a deity in Egypt, known as Bastet. A lot of cats were sacrificed to Bastet and mummified. This suggests that Egyptians were actively breeding cats. Later this cat population spread throughout Europe.

And when Europeans started exploring the world and sailed from one continent to another, they found cats to be the purrfect companions. Cats not only offered their companionship, but they also protected the ships by getting rid of vermin. And just like that this cat population spread from Europe to other countries like America and Australia. Based on the skulls of the cats found in Egyptian burial grounds, these cats have been identified to be of the species Felis sylvestris lybica, also knowns as the African wildcat.

Birth of the mixed breed cats

When the African wildcat population spread from Europe to other parts of the world, they bred with the local domestic cats. And now, over the years, the genetic pool of domestic cats has become very vast and it’s difficult to characterize them in specific breeds. The DNA of most domestic cats throughout the world is almost identical to that of the African wildcat.

As of writing this post, there are only 45 pure cat breeds identified by Cat Fanciers’ Association (CFA). So, the remaining all cats are considered to be of the mixed breeds and are commonly known as domestic cats. To summarize, domestic cats can be a mix between:

a purebred and a domestic cat two purebred cats of different breeds any two domestic cats Because of this larger gene pool in domestic cats, they can have any number of colors and patterns. Their coat’s length and body size are also variable. They are considered to be highly intelligent and have a longer average lifespan than most of the purebred cats.

And it just doesn’t stop at physical traits, their behavior can also be quite different. They usually require minimal maintenance and are easier to groom and take care of. Basically, every domestic cat is a unique blend of purrfection. ❤️