Cats have been associated with humans for at least 9,500 years, and are currently the most popular pet in the world. Owing to their close association with humans, cats are now found almost everywhere in the world.
Cats are similar in to the other felids, with strong, flexible bodies, quick reflexes, sharp retractable claws, and teeth adapted to killing small prey. Aspredators, cats use their acute hearing and ability to see in near darkness to locate prey. Not only can cats hear sounds too faint for human ears, they can also hear sounds higher than humans can perceive. This is because the usual prey of cats (particularly rodents such as mice) make high frequency noises, so the hearing of the cat has to pinpoint these faint high-pitched sounds. Cats rely more on smell than taste, and have a much better sense of smell than humans.
Despite being solitary hunters, cats are a social species and use a variety of and types of for . These include and grunting.
Cats have a rapid breeding rate. Under controlled breedi gato, French chat (French pronunciation: Basq and Dutch kat, German Katze and kotka. The ultimate source of all these terms is catus, cattus, catta "domestic cat", as opposed to feles 'European wildcat'. It is unclear whether the Greek or the Latin came first, but, like qiṭṭ and kàdíís, they were undoubtedly borrowed from a word in an language akin kaddîska, meaning 'wildcat' The term puss (as in pussycat) may come from poes or from Puuskatte, dialectal kattepus, or pus, pusekatt, all of which primarily denote a woman and, by extension, a female catng, they can be bred and shown as pedigree pets, a hobby known as Failure to control the breeding of pet cats by spaying and neutering and the abandonment of former household pets has resulted in large numbers of worldwide, with a population of up to 60 million of these animals in the United States alone.
 As wrote in 2007, "Until recently the cat was commonly believed to have been domesticated in ancient Egypt, where it was a cult animal", but a study that year revealed that the lines of descent of all house cats probably run through as few as five (Felis silvestris lybica) c. 8000 BC.