Which would win in a fight: a cat or a dog? Your answer might depend on what pets you had growing up, but there's an actual scientific answer. Mashable reports that at least when it comes to evolution, Team Cat reigns supreme.
Researchers from Sweden, Brazil, and Switzerland looked at more than 2,000 fossils to figure out why many dog species died out. The study, published in the journal PNAS, reveals that when it comes to ancient cats versus ancient dogs, cats win by a mile.
Cats and dogs competed with each other for food back in the day, since they're both carnivores. Animals like wild dogs, hyenas, and lions would be after the same prey, and the more successful species would be more likely to survive. The researchers found that ancient cats had a negative impact on the survival of ancient dogs — but the reverse wasn't true. Competing with cats had more of an impact on dogs' extinction than even climate change.
"This suggests that felids [cats] must have been more efficient predators than most of the extinct species in the dog family," the researchers write in a statement. But think of it this way: Today's dogs were efficient enough to survive, despite those vicious, meanie cats. So let's call it a draw.