Catquistadors: Oldest known domestic cats in the US died off Florida coast in a 1559 Spanish shipwreck

The earliest known domestic cat in what is now the United States perished 466 years ago in a shipwreck off the coast of Florida, a new study finds.

The ship was part of a Spanish colonizing expedition led by the conquistador Tristán de Luna y Arellano, who was voyaging from Mexico under the Spanish crown. In September 1559, a hurricane in Pensacola Bay wrecked several of the 11 ships, which had been anchored near the new Spanish settlement of Santa María de Ochuse. Researchers found one of these wrecks, known as Emanuel Point II, in 2006. This shipwreck holds the remains of an adult and a juvenile domestic cat (Felis catus), according to the new study, which was published April 14 in the journal American Antiquity.