Your Maine Coon might help solve crime

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This thought applies to all domestic cats in homes including Maine Coons, currently in the top 3 most popular cat breeds. 

Forensic researchers at Flinders University in Australia and Victoria Police Forensic Services Department believe that a criminal's DNA might be on the household's domestic cat companion.

Your Maine Coon might help solve crime
Your Maine Coon might help solve crime. Image: MikeB.

DNA can be transferred to cats. And nowadays DNA plays a very important role is catching criminals. The researchers say that there is a "lack of data on companion animals such as cats and dogs in their relationship to human DNA transfer."

The researcher's co-author Heidi Monkman said:
"These companion animals can be highly relevant in assessing the presence and activities of the inhabitants of the household, or any recent visitors to the scene."

20 cats participated in the research from 15 different homes and with the owners all having different levels of interactions with their cats.

DNA samples were taken from the cats as well as from individual people within the home. They found that 80% of the cats had detectable levels of DNA on them. And they were also able to generate "interpretable profiles" from 70% of the DNA samples taken from the cats.

What they suggest is that domestic cat companions are receptors i.e., receivers of DNA and "vectors for DNA". What they are also suggesting, I believe, is that DNA can be transferred to cats and then transferred off cats when another person handles the cat.

And all this helps to provide information from a crime scene when trying to detect what went on to assist in catching the criminal.

Not that I want to hear about a criminal entering a nice home where there is an equally nice Maine Coon cat snoozing in his bed. But if such an event does happen, the family's Maine Coon cat may hold the key to catching the criminal.

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