The domestic cat—your cat—has, from its evolutionary origins in Africa, been transformed in comparatively little time into one of the most successful and diverse species on the planet. Jonathan Losos, writing as both a scientist and a cat lover, explores how researchers today are unraveling the secrets of the cat, past and present, using all the tools of modern technology.

About Dr. Jonathan Losos
Jonathan Losos is an evolutionary biologist known for his research on how lizards rapidly evolve to adapt to changing environments. A lifelong feline enthusiast, Losos in recent years has focused his evolutionarybiologist training on our household friends, exploring what scientists have discovered about where cats came from, why they do what they do, and what the future may hold.

He graduated from Harvard University and received his PhD from the University of California. After a postdoctoral stint at the University of California Davis, Jonathan moved to Washington University for his first faculty position, before leaving to become a professor of biology at Harvard and Curator in Herpetology at the university’s Museum of Comparative Zoology. He then returned to Washington University in 2018 to become the founding Director of the Living Earth Collaborative, a partnership between Washington University, the Saint Louis Zoo and the Missouri Botanical Garden. This new biodiversity center, nearly unique in partnering a leading university, zoo, and garden, has as its mission to advance knowledge and conservation of biodiversity.

Losos has written more than 250 scientific papers and three books, most recently The Cat’s Meow: How Cats Evolved from the Savanna to Your Sofa (Penguin Random House, 2017), and is an author of a leading college biology textbook (Raven et al., Biology). Losos has been elected a member of the National Academy of Sciences and a fellow of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences and is the recipient of the Daniel Giraud Elliot Medal from the National Academy of Sciences, the Theodosius Dobzhansky Prize from the Society for the Study of Evolution, the Edward O. Wilson Naturalist Award from the American Society of Naturalists, and the David Starr Jordan Prize.
https://www.jonathanlosos.com/

00:00:00 Introduction
00:06:24 Cat Communication
00:18:01 Cat Behavior
00:29:19 Cats Past, Present, and Future
00:55:04 Book and Q&A