When Did Felines Evolve?

The ancestor of modern domestic cats was the last to appear, about 3.4 million years ago. A small wildcat species was first domesticated in the Near East 8,000 to 10,000 years ago. As sea levels rose and fell, cats migrated to new continents and developed new species.

Did cats exist with dinosaurs?

All told, about 75 percent of known species disappeared practically overnight. But as devastating as this environmental catastrophe was to the life on our planet, without it, there wouldn't have been any cats. Mammals had thrived during the Age of Dinosaurs, but only at a small size.

How long have felines existed?

The earliest cats probably appeared about 35 to 28.5 million years ago. Proailurus is the oldest known cat that occurred after the Eocene–Oligocene extinction event about 33.9 million years ago; fossil remains were excavated in France and Mongolia's Hsanda Gol Formation.