No other animal rivets the human imagination as vividly (0) as cats. The fascination (1) cats mixes primitive fear and profound respect. (2) the invention of weapons, our ancestors were easy prey for cats. In (3) wild, even in a zoo, we still regard a cat’s presence with caution, sometimes even panic. Just knowing a cat is around sharpens the perceptions: you are anxious, you are (4) longer in control.
Cats spin a story about (5) creatures adapt to the world they live (6) . To the biologist, the leopard’s spots embody the principle of natural selection – the process of genetic winnowing through millennia. Just what (7) 34 million years of evolutionary refinement produced? A broad face and short jaw, exquisite agility, retractable claws (8) whip out like a switchblade when needed, night vision six times (9) sensitive as ours – the story of cats is ultimately a story about design. Cloaked in elegant camouflage and lethally armed, cats reveal (10) the biologists call the “essence of the perfect, polished warrior”.
Cats (11) known to (12) been domesticated in Egypt by 2000 BC. Today, they outnumber dogs as pets in many countries. They are (13) needy than dogs and better suit the modern, mobile lifestyle. Cats may exasperate. They may not eat (14) fed. They may shred the couch, ruin the rug and tear the drapes. (15) , unlike humans, they never wound. Instead, they awe, just as we awe them.