The earliest recognized domestic feline in what is now the United States died 466 years back in a shipwreck off the coast of Florida, a brand-new research study discovers.

The ship was part of a Spanish colonizing exploration led by the conquistador Tristán de Luna y Arellano, who was voyaging from Mexico under the Spanish crown. In September 1559, a typhoon in Pensacola Bay damaged numerous of the 11 ships, which had actually been anchored near the brand-new Spanish settlement of Santa María de Ochuse. Scientists discovered among these wrecks, called Emanuel Point IIin 2006This shipwreck holds the remains of an adult and a juvenile domestic feline (Felis catusaccording to the brand-new research study, which was released April 14 in the journal American Antiquity

“Our current understanding is that all domestic cats come from ancestors in the Middle East. So, they had to be introduced to the Americas by people,” stated research study co-author Martin Welkeran anthropological archaeologist who concentrates on zooarchaeology at the University of Arizona.

Archaeologists had actually formerly discovered domestic feline stays in other early Spanish settlements, consisting of the Indigenous Taíno town of En Bas Saline in what is now Haiti, where Chistopher Columbus landed in 1492. Columbus never ever made it to continental North America. Rather, “the Spanish expeditions in Florida were really the first opportunities for domestic cats to reach what is today the U.S.,” Welker informed Live Science in an e-mail.

Related: Animal felines got here in China through the Silk Road 1,400 years earlier, ancient DNA research study discovers

The group examined the feline bones utilizing numerous methods, consisting of zooarchaeological (comparing the bones from the shipwreck to the bones of contemporary felines), isotopic (surveying various chemical signatures) and hereditary (studying ancient DNA) analyses, Welker stated. The outcomes validated that the bones came from domestic felines and supplied insights into their feline origins in addition to the adult feline’s diet plan.

“What was interesting, is that our cat was not eating the rats on board the ship but had a diet more in line with what we’d expect for the sailors,” research study co-author John Brattenan anthropologist at the University of West Florida, informed Live Science in an e-mail. This shows that the sailors fed the adult feline either due to the fact that the rats did not supply sufficient food, or out of love, the scientists composed in the research study.

“It was interesting to think about the idea of the cat being a pet or one that was looked after by the Spanish sailors,” Bratten included.

The hereditary analyses recommend that both the adult and juvenile felines came down from European loved ones. While it’s difficult to figure out how the felines got onto the ship, one concept is that they slipped aboard while it was anchored or docked in Mexico before cruising for Florida, Bratten stated.

They might have been brought aboard deliberately, offered that felines assisted manage the rat and mice populations that might get into food products and transfer illness, Welker stated.

It would not be unexpected if the felines had actually been mousers, since “from their domestication until their arrival in the New World, cats’ primary role in many communities was pest control, something that they were well suited to and that required little supervision from their human cohabitants,” the scientists composed in the research study. The ancient Romans most likely presented felines to Europe for this factor, according to the research study.

Today, one in every 3 U.S. families has a family pet feline, according to the research study, and there are more than 600 million domestic felines worldwide.

Editor’s note: This story was upgraded at 10:49 a.m. ET on April 30 to fix the caption of the animal bones picture. It consists of both feline and rat stays, not simply feline stays as was formerly mentioned.

Margherita is a trilingual freelance author concentrating on science and history writing with a specific interest in archaeology, palaeontology, astronomy and human habits. She made her bachelor’s degree from Boston College in English literature, ancient history and French, and her journalism MA from L’École Du Journalisme de Nice in International New Media Journalism. In addition to Live Science, her bylines consist of Smithsonian Magazine, Discovery Magazine, BBC Travel, Atlas Obscura and more.