Cats are hypercarnivorous, opportunistic animals that have adjusted to anthropogenic environments since the Neolithic period. Through humans, either by direct feeding and/or scavenging on food scraps, the diet of cats has been enriched with animals that they cannot kill themselves (e.g., large mammals, fish). Here, we conducted carbon and nitrogen stable isotope ratio analysis to reconstruct the diet of medieval cats and investigate cat-human interactions in two medieval harbor sites (Qalhât, Oman and Siraf, Iran). The analysis included 28 cat individuals and 100 associated marine and terrestrial faunal samples pertaining to > 30 taxa. The isotopic results indicate a high marine protein-based diet for the cats from Qalhât and a mixed marine-terrestrial (C4) diet for the cats from Siraf. Cats at these sites most likely scavenged on both human food scraps and refuse related to fishing activities, with differences in the two sites most likely associated with the availability of marine resources and/or the living conditions of the cats. By shedding light on the dietary habits of cats from two medieval harbors in the Arabian Gulf and Gulf of Oman, this study illustrates the potential of stable isotope analysis in reconstructing human-cat interactions in the past.
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RBINS Staff Publications 2023
Integration of the world’s natural history collections can provide a resource for decision-makers Over the past three centuries, people have collected objects and specimens and placed them in natural history museums throughout the world. Taken as a whole, this global collection is the physical basis for our understanding of the natural world and our place in it, an unparalleled source of information that is directly relevant to issues as diverse as wildlife conservation, climate change, pandemic preparedness, food security, invasive species, rare minerals, and the bioeconomy (1). Strategic coordination and use of the global collection has the potential to focus future collecting and guide decisions that are relevant to the future of humanity and biodiversity. To begin to map the aggregate holdings of the global collection, we describe here a simple and fast method to assess the contents of any natural history museum, and report results based on our assessment of 73 of the world’s largest natural history museums and herbaria from 28 countries.
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