A study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) has concluded that cats are a "more successful" species than dogs.
According to Mashable, an international team of scientists from the Universities of Göthenburg (Sweden), São Paulo (Brazil) and Lausanne (Switzerland) studied more than 2,000 fossils of prehistoric cats and dogs to determine how the different species coped with climate change and other environmental pressures over the millennia.
Prior to domestication by humans, feline and canine species historically competed for the same food. Cat species, being better hunters, typically beat canine species like foxes, wolves and wild dogs to prey. The preeminence of feline hunters, according to the study, doomed more than 40 species of canines to extinction.
"We usually expect climate changes to play an overwhelming role in the evolution of biodiversity. Instead, competition among different carnivore species proved to be even more important for canids," said the study's lead author Daniele Silvestro of Göthenburg.
The study also showed that while feline species had a major impact on canines wherever they shared territory, competition with canines had little to no effect on feline species.
