Felis silvestris is the feline species in which El Gato is a subspecies. But not all these cats are house cats. Now, the Chinese have sequenced some genomes.
El Gato came out of F.s. lybica, they find; these tend spotty, like leopards. Over in what used to be Tibet - Sichuan / Szechuan, Qinghai - is a striped wildcat which, now, they realise is a homegrown F.s. bieti. Also out here is spotted F.s. ornata from the desert northwest, which used to the Uyghurstan. F.s. lybica and these Asians diverged 1.87 Mya. Later bieti and ornata diverged 1.27 Mya, although since then an adventurous ornata - rather, ornatus - delivered some DNA to bieti.
(Yes, I spelt "lybica" right; I've checked, over and over again. Blame the old taxonomists.)
So the domestic cat is an import. Since then, well... life has found a way. They found a catus Y signature in an ornat...us and three bieti Ys in local housecats. In fact those housecats are all 10% bieti now.
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