Cat

Meeoooow! It's a common house cat. Most of us know at least one of these critters. All the breeds of house cats you might have heard of, from Ragdolls to Siamese to Pixie-bobs, are actually one species, Felis catus. Their closest relative is probably Felis silvestris lybica, the African Wildcat, which still lives in Africa and the Middle East.

Cats have been domesticated for as long as anyone can remember. 3,000 years ago, Egyptians were already keeping them as pets. Sometimes, they'd even make mummies out of them and bury them alongside people. As it turns out, they weren't the first to have the idea: archaeologists in Crete recently found a cat skeleton buried with a human one in a 9,500 year-old grave. That means people and cats have been hanging out together since the stone age!

Because cats have been living (and dying) with us for so long, it's not suprising that they've worked their way pretty deeply into our myths, stories, and legends. In Ancient Egypt the cat-headed god Bast was the sun's daughter, and across the world in ancient Australia, Ngariman the cat-man was said to have killed the two dingo-gods who created the world after they laughed at him. The Norse goddess Freya rode simply everywhere in a chariot pulled by cats. Classy!

People in Medieval Europe believed that witches kept cats as "familiars" to help them with their spells, and lots of people are still superstitious about them today. In America and most of Europe, it's considered bad luck to have a black cat cross your path, but in Britain and Ireland, it's good luck. No one seems to agree, and people have even done experiments to try to get to the bottom of the whole thing. There's definitely something a bit spooky and magic about black cats, which is probably why you see so many around at Halloween.