cat evolution

On my morning stroll in Zamalek today, I saw a typical event for this city: a stray tomcat sauntering in and out of traffic in death-defying fashion. Drivers in Egypt are even more dangerous for cats than they would be in the United States, simply because they move so irregularly. They speed up and slow down without warning, lurch into empty spaces as soon as they appear, and (though it would make little difference for cats) even the body language of the drivers is inscrutable as to what they might do next. The methods of driving here are dangerous even for human pedestrians, let alone cats. (But in all fairness to Egypt, I’ve seen even worse drivers elsewhere: Brazil and especially Goa. Must be something about that Portuguese blood! Though strangely enough, I found all the dire Lonely Planet warnings about crazy drivers in Portugal itself to be completely false.)

In any case, these Cairo cats have obviously evolved in some way to enable them to survive in this environment. It seems like a good subject of study (stray animal survival in cities) and if such a study exists it would be interesting to read.