Today's owners of house cats may be repulsed by the predatory habits shown by an otherwise docile kitty, but in fact it was the feline's ability to catch and kill disease-carrying rodents in ancient Egypt and medieval Europe that led to its domestication and popularity in the first place. Cats are born with the instinct to hunt. Their brain circuitry is wired to make stalking and attacking reflex actions. The mother's role is not to show them how to hunt but to bring them prey so that they can refine this skill. Play with their siblings also arouses natural hunting instincts. Some cats, even when deprived of this practice when young, can develop into great hunters.
All cats are capable of hunting, but some are not adept at completing the job with the killing coup de grace, the nape bite. A skilled feline hunter will dispatch its prey with one clean bite to the back of the neck, breaking the animal's neck and severing the spinal cord. Many domestic cats, however, are incapable of correctly inflicting the nape bite, probably due to a lack of practice in kittenhood. Often the result is a protracted, messy or even unsuccessful kill. In the wild, however, the victim almost always becomes a quick meal. The nape bite is used to dispatch small prey; larger victims are asphyxiated by a powerful clamping bite on the throat. Domestic cats, which have never had to catch their own dinner and are regularly fed by caring owners, sometimes manage to finish off a mouse or bird that happens to cross their path.
Even though hunger is not the motivation, the hunting instinct is strong enough to surface and the prey, either dead, mauled, stunned or alive and kicking, may be deposited at the feet of a usually unappreciative owner.
