Talk:African wildcat

This article is rated C-class on Wikipedia's content assessment scale. It is of interest to the following WikiProjects:

Cats Top‑importance This article is within the scope of WikiProject Cats. This project provides a central approach to Cat-related subjects on Wikipedia. Please participate by editing the article, and help us assess and improve articles to good and 1.0 standards, or visit the wikiproject page for more details.CatsWikipedia:WikiProject CatsTemplate:WikiProject CatsCats articles Top This article has been rated as Top-importance on the project's importance scale. Mammals Mid‑importance This article is within the scope of WikiProject Mammals, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of mammal-related subjects on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.MammalsWikipedia:WikiProject MammalsTemplate:WikiProject Mammalsmammal articles Mid This article has been rated as Mid-importance on the project's importance scale. Africa Low‑importance This article is within the scope of WikiProject Africa, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of Africa on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.AfricaWikipedia:WikiProject AfricaTemplate:WikiProject AfricaAfrica articles Low This article has been rated as Low-importance on the project's importance scale. Asia Top‑importance This article is within the scope of WikiProject Asia, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of Asia on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.AsiaWikipedia:WikiProject AsiaTemplate:WikiProject AsiaAsia articles Top This article has been rated as Top-importance on the project's importance scale.

There is a request, submitted by Catfurball, for an audio version of this article to be created. For further information, see WikiProject Spoken Wikipedia. The rationale behind the request is: "Important".

I know this seems trivial, but the cat in the article's photo was from the Johannesburg Zoo in South Africa and its probable the photo is actually of the local Felis silvestris cafra (Sub-Saharan wildcat), which was separated from lybica quite recently (hence confusion of terms). Unless the cat in the zoo is specifically an African wildcat (Felis silvestris lybica), which is poor wording, since wildcats south of the Sahara were considered the same as the Near Eastern wildcats.

Schvass (talk) 20:02, 29 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I wouldn't say it's trivial. It's factual. I did some research into the name change and why it took place and the Felis silvestris lybica supposedly split off from the European counterpart wildcat about 173,000 years ago, and from the Asian subspecies F. s. ornata and the Southern African F. s. cafra about 131,000 years ago. Roughly 160,000 years later, so 10,000 years ago, the domestication of some of these took place int he Middel East, but I can't find where in the middle east. The bottom line is that there's a definite change that makes the picture change not only mandatory, but not trivial at all. It's like putting a polar bear in the picture of a black bear. Thanks for pointing it out. Here's an article I found that, if expanded on, is enlightening. ^[1] — Preceding unsigned comment added by Chewbakadog (talk • contribs) 21:09, 29 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Or this article can just use a domestic cat image, as they are closer to F. s. lybica than F. s. cafra, 9,000-10,000 years ago compared to 131,000 years ago. Editor abcdef (talk) 07:49, 16 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]

There seems to be a general problem with Wikipedia articles on genus Felis: the cladogram being used shows F. sylvestris, the European Wildcat, as the sister taxon (closest relative) of domestic cats. However, the text of this article matches the evidence I know, which is that the African Wildcat F. lybica is the direct ancestor of domestic cats. So the text and the cladogram image in the same article contradict each other. I think this is also a problem in other articles on Felis which use the same cladogram image. I know there's been some disagreement about whether sylvestris and lybica are species or subspecies, but Wikipedia is treating them as separate species, and the issue would be the same regardless.

I think the correct fix is to delete the cladogram from this article and the others on species in the genus Felis and replace it with an accurate cladogram that matches the text. But I don't have the graphics skills to make a new cladogram myself, and wanted to check in with the community as it affects multiple articles. Panoramagram (talk) 03:28, 6 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

The cladogram you're referring to is sourced to, among others, this paper so, short of complaining to the authors of that, and getting them to change it, you would have to find an alternative/better source for the nuclear DNA data - it's possible there is one, since that's nearly 20 years old, but, wherever it is, you'll need to find it before we can change anything. You'll note that the mitochondrial cladogram already shows the pattern you were expecting. Anaxial (talk) 04:32, 6 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Or we could just ditch the old cladogram in favor of just the mito-based one. - UtherSRG (talk) 13:24, 6 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

That's also an option, although they are both about the same age (2006 v. 2007)... it would be better if we could find something more modern that had resolved the issue.Anaxial (talk) 18:26, 6 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]