Why are there no cats in the zodiac?

As a common pet, cats are deeply loved by people. Cats are undoubtedly more popular with people than mice that everyone yells at. Then why didn't the ancients include cats in the zodiac? Let's talk about the origin of the zodiac. The zodiac originated from heavenly stems and earthly branches's theory in Xia Dynasty, and gradually cooperated with heavenly stems and earthly branches, and this form was gradually fixed. The Xia dynasty has a history of more than 4000 years. In ancient times, "cats" were not the pets we know now. To be exact, cats in that period were very different from cats in the present sense.

The ancestors of the domestic cats we keep today are not "made in China", but their ancestors came from India, and they are "desert cats" in India. According to the present findings, the time when Indian cats were introduced into China can be inferred as the Eastern Han Dynasty.

A picture of a domestic cat catching mice was found in a stone tomb in the Eastern Han Dynasty, which is the earliest record of a cat found in China so far. The Eastern Han Dynasty happened to be a period of frequent exchanges between China and India through Buddhism. From this period until the Tang Dynasty, cats became popular. Therefore, our ancestors' understanding of "cats" should have started from the Eastern Han Dynasty, which is thousands of years different from the two zodiac signs established in the Xia Dynasty.

However, this does not mean that there were no such animals as "cats" in China before, but that cats were not kept as pets. In fact, in ancient times, China's cat species may not be suitable for domestication. Bobcats are mentioned in the Book of Rites, and there are sayings of "bears, cats and tigers" in the Book of Songs, among which "cats" are mentioned. Bobcats are definitely different from what people usually call cats today. Although it belongs to the cat family, the reminder is much bigger than the cat. Even young wild boar and deer are its prey. If divided, it should be a medium-sized beast.

It is conceivable that these fast-moving cats are elusive. Compared with animals like mice, they are obviously a rare species, which may explain why even mice are in the zodiac, but cats are not.