They aren't a hive consciousness and able to burrow into a person's brain and use them as a meat puppet are they? [yes, Marvels were sentient, scarily smart, everywhere...and not friendly.]
Granted, there are polydactyl cats with 'thumbs' and there are Margay's cats... who have actual opposable thumbs and can interbreed with domestic cats to produce fertile offspring with thumbs. Then there's LeFish cats... Leslie Fish's cats whom she's been breeding for intelligence for the last 30 years. [with some success.]
The Chernobyl cats are something of a curiosity. You see, there's a whole ecosystem in there now... there's a type of black 'fungus' that uses the high levels of radiation in much the same way as a plant uses light. [actually, it's not certain if it's a fungus or a lichen since it sort-of photosynthesises.] There are bugs that live off the fungus, and rats and mice that live off the bugs...and at the top the cats, who live off the rats and mice. All of whom have adapted to the high radiation levels...
Well, it was initially thought they'd adapted. But close study of the genes showed that the traits had been there all along... the mice & rats are actually derived from a strain normally found in the Sudan/Sini region, and probably came in on a ship. The fungus is common just about everywhere and is found on granite... and cats as you know come from desert ancestors.
Which points back to the natural nuclear reactor that went melt down in Africa and produced conditions very similar to the reactor core at Chernobyl. After that, evolution set in...
Which I suppose makes for a heck of an origin story!
Re: Hmm...
Granted, there are polydactyl cats with 'thumbs' and there are Margay's cats... who have actual opposable thumbs and can interbreed with domestic cats to produce fertile offspring with thumbs. Then there's LeFish cats... Leslie Fish's cats whom she's been breeding for intelligence for the last 30 years. [with some success.]
The Chernobyl cats are something of a curiosity. You see, there's a whole ecosystem in there now... there's a type of black 'fungus' that uses the high levels of radiation in much the same way as a plant uses light. [actually, it's not certain if it's a fungus or a lichen since it sort-of photosynthesises.] There are bugs that live off the fungus, and rats and mice that live off the bugs...and at the top the cats, who live off the rats and mice. All of whom have adapted to the high radiation levels...
Well, it was initially thought they'd adapted. But close study of the genes showed that the traits had been there all along... the mice & rats are actually derived from a strain normally found in the Sudan/Sini region, and probably came in on a ship. The fungus is common just about everywhere and is found on granite... and cats as you know come from desert ancestors.
Which points back to the natural nuclear reactor that went melt down in Africa and produced conditions very similar to the reactor core at Chernobyl. After that, evolution set in...
Which I suppose makes for a heck of an origin story!