What was the first animal to be domesticated by humans?
Domestication
The beginnings of animal domestication involved a protracted coevolutionary process with multiple stages along different pathways. It is proposed that there were three major pathways that most animal domesticates followed into domestication: (1) commensals, adapted to a human niche (e.g., dogs, cats, fowl, possibly pigs); (2) prey animals sought for food (e.g., sheep, goats, cattle, water buffalo, yak, pig, reindeer, llama and alpaca); and (3) targeted animals for draft and nonfood resources (e.g., horse, donkey, camel). The dog was the first domesticant, and was established across Eurasia before the end of the Late Pleistocene era, well before cultivation and before the domestication of other animals. Humans did not intend to domesticate animals from, or at least they did not envision a domesticated animal resulting from, either the commensal or prey pathways. In both of these cases, humans became entangled with these species as the relationship between them, and the human role in their survival and reproduction, intensified, leading eventually to a formalised animal husbandry. Although the directed pathway proceeded from capture to taming, the other two pathways are not as goal-oriented and archaeological records suggest that they took place over much longer time frames.
Cat
It was long thought that cat domestication was initiated in Egypt, because cats in ancient Egypt were venerated since around 3100 BC.
However, the earliest indication for the taming of an African wildcat ("F. lybica") was found in Cyprus, where a cat skeleton was excavated close by a human Neolithic grave dating to around 7500 BC. African wildcats were probably first domesticated in the Near East. The leopard cat ("Prionailurus bengalensis") was tamed independently in China around 5500 BC, though this line of partially domesticated cats leaves no trace in the domestic cat populations of today.
As of 2007, the domestic cat was the second-most popular pet in the U.S. by number of pets owned, after freshwater fish. As of 2010, it was ranked the third-most popular pet in the UK, after fish and dogs, with around 8 million being owned.