There are tiny feral cats like that in the Virgin Islands, but they are descended from domesticated felines, not indigenous.
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Uh, yeah… so?
Our family rescued a smol back in the late 70s who had been abused (mom found him in a dumpster with a narrow chain embedded in his fur), who could fit in the palm of a child’s hand.
He grew up to be a big ol’ tub of lard, though.
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Part of it is probably that our brains are wired to read small as adorable. Though weirdly it does seem to have some of the features of neoteny. Which usually comes with domestication. His stumpy little legs. Oversized head. And big ole eyes.
Running my mind over some other cars a lot of them have a bit of that. But this little bastard has it in spades. Really does look (and sound!) like a kitten.
Also 2lbs seems awfully large for the smallest of any group of mamals (outside the yuge ones). Though I suppose its about the same size as a fennic fox.
Which begs the question. Can I buy one?
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I always figured someone would genetically alter a cat or dog to always look like a kitten/puppy, even as an adult, but apparently nature got there first.
“Benefit” in the sense that people turn them into pets and torture them by keeping them awake when they naturally want to sleep, pull out their teeth and claws because they’re naturally hunters and therefore dangerous, etc. Benefits they could do without, really.
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OMG, isn’t this the one where the lady of the house baked kitten-shaped cookies, and at first the poor dog thought it had been cooked?
As another owner of a mischievous cat/danger junkie, I share his pain…
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You wouldn’t need to. They already do. Domestication seems to go along with certain physical features that emulate babies. I already linked this but:
Neoteny goes hand in hand with domestication. Even cows got some neoteny going on. Open question on whether its our preference for selecting young looking animals we can be attached to that drives it. Or if there’s something inherent to the domestication process that brings that shit out (its not just looks but behavior as well). Or if its something vaguer like a survival value to being adorable to humans dictating which species we domesticate. But I’d go with option 1.
Benefit in that people don’t scream “oh my god snakes!” and stamp the ever living hell out of them on sight. Or hire people specifically to eradicate them on principal.
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They’re like, very stable indigenouses
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Yep; that’s Marc Anthony and Pussyfoot in Feed the Kitty.…
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Man, that’s bleak.
I have a 2 pound cat. She certainly isn’t palm sized.
Shrimpy? Yes. Palm sized? Nope.
Funnily enough, two of the three kittens she had grew up to be pretty big (a almost 20 pound tabby boy and a 14 pound maine coon mix).
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Humans hunted and killed the larger, uglier variety of the same species. Only the small & cute survived to breed, and we left them alone because DAWWWWWWWWWW. At least that’s what Dawwwwwwwwwwin would say.
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Yes! My mom’s cat was a feral who gave birth to cats that were twice her size when grown.
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Was she a rescue? If so probably not genetically small just stunted by poor nutrition as a kitten.
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She was a stray and i’m guessing she was the runt of the litter too because her two other siblings were normal sized.
Never had a dog in my life. But, good to know! ;~}
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That’s, like, all cats.
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I had one for 16 lucky years. Super friendly, super loyal, super-SUPER-stupid. I still love that lunatic.
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Mine is reasonably intelligent, but the rest of your description lines up. He knows I take care of him so he trusts me to do all kinds of things when he needs some care after tangling with another animal or whatever.
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