‘Dogs vs. Cats: Two Paths’ Traces 50 Million Years of Evolution — and How Both Became Our Companions

Poster for Dogs vs. Cats: Two Paths. Photo courtesy of the National Nakdonggang Biodiversity Institute.

[News Culture] —Dogs and cats may share our homes today, but their paths through evolution could hardly be more different. A new exhibition in South Korea looks back some 50 million years to explore how the two animal families developed distinct ways of hunting, sensing their surroundings and surviving — and how both eventually became part of human life.

The National Nakdonggang Biodiversity Institute is presenting Dogs vs. Cats: Two Paths at the special exhibition hall on the second floor of its Biodiversity Experience Center in Sangju, North Gyeongsang Province. The exhibition opened July 28 and runs through May 30, 2027.

Canids and felids split from a distant common ancestor and adapted to different ecological niches over millions of years. Canids came to rely heavily on a powerful sense of smell and cooperative hunting, making group living central to their survival. Felids, by contrast, evolved sharper night vision and highly specialized skills for hunting alone, allowing them to thrive as largely solitary predators. Those contrasting strategies can still be seen in the anatomy and behavior of their modern descendants.

The exhibition brings that evolutionary story to life through video, family-tree diagrams, taxidermy specimens and interactive displays. More than 20 specimens are on view, including wolves, Arctic foxes and African wild dogs, as well as tigers, cheetahs and Canada lynx — species that visitors rarely have the chance to examine up close.

Hands-on activities invite visitors to compare the two groups in more detail. Alongside skeletal specimens, they can touch models of canid and felid snouts and tongues and explore how their physical traits differ. Game-based installations recreate key survival abilities, including scent tracking and cooperative hunting for canids, and night vision and solitary predation for felids.

An AI-powered feature adds a playful element by analyzing a visitor’s traits and matching them with the canid or felid species they most closely resemble.

The final section moves from the wild into the home, tracing how the ancestors of today’s dogs and cats passed through domestication before becoming the companion animals people know today. The exhibition uses that transition to widen the discussion beyond evolutionary biology, asking what coexistence with animals means and how that relationship can be built on greater respect for life.

The institute hopes the exhibition will help visitors better understand the roots of familiar companion animals while encouraging a more thoughtful and responsible culture around living with them.

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