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Manassas, UNITED STATES: A domestic cat is shown playing with a ball 29 June 2007 in Manassas,Virginia.The first house cat was a fierce mouser that struck an enduring friendship with early farmers who settled in the fertile lands of the Middle East 10,000 years ago, researchers said.Through DNA technology, the researchers said they were able to trace the domestic feline's ancestry back to the Near Eastern wildcat that roamed the "Fertile Crescent" of what is today Iraq, Syria, Lebanon and Israel. The researchers used DNA samples from 979 cats to study the evolutionary ties between the domestic feline and five wildcat subspecies from three continents, including the Near Eastern wildcat. The researchers were able to rule out the European wildcat, the Central Asian wildcat, the southern African wildcat and the Chinese desert cat as the domestic feline's ancestor. The authors, in the study published 28 June 2007 on the Science Express website, found that each subspecies and domestic cats fell into a group, or "clade," that was genetically distinct. AFP PHOTO/KAREN BLEIER Obtenez des photos d'actualité haute résolution de qualité sur getty