Comment by autoexec

I remember seeing a wildcat in a sanctuary in Costa Rica with a similar story (the kittens looked like housecat kittens, so someone adopted them, but the adult cat's behavior was different enough to be really challenging). I've been trying to remember the exact species I saw there (maybe an oncilla?), but apparently there are several kinds of wildcat fairly easily mistaken for housecats as kittens.

I think not all of them categorically refuse to be pets, but they're noticeably more aggressive and less affectionate compared to housecats.

> Let's see if it (or crossbreeds) can be tamed.

Clearly you are not a cat person ... the question is not if it can be tamed, but how quickly it can tame the humans around it ... ;-)

What do you mean it's the only one known? It got the name because locals called it that way. Locals will not call things they don't normally see.

I mean, taming animals is trivial. Look at the lion whisperer. People before that thought that lions are always wild.

Some animals are just harder to tame and remain ferocious more than others. But behaviour of animals is adaptable and most animals learn.

All of a cat's senses and weapons face forward. It makes purfect sense to have its back protected from an attack from behind.

even as a kid we all liked little forts and boxes etc, which is itself interesting. snow caves were awesome; makes me wonder if it's a primeval instinct somehow.

Many years ago I met someone who had trained his two housecats to guard the house (I am not sure what that entails). He also had two great big dogs similarly trained. For my safety he would not let any of the animals near me when I visited, but he said the cats scared him more than the dogs did.

Spots are different.

The trim-color house cats refers to all calicos... calicos are white spotted tortoiseshell cats. The "is orange or black" is a X linked gene, so you can have XoXb... and then the x chromosome inactivation kicks in and some groups of cells are activated orange and some are activated black.

But (not white) spots and variations of color get into things like the Agouti gene ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agouti_coloration_genetics ). A tabby cat (black and tan, or orange and darker orange) has no sex linked characteristics.

For a deep dive into the genetics of Agouti and how that influences cat fur colors, http://messybeast.com/genetics-agouti-and-corin.htm