Because the members of all of these genera are cats, they can be grouped together under the family Felidae. At the Order level, cats are grouped with other animals that are quite different in physical appearance and general behavior, but with whom they share other basic attributes. In this case, cats, dogs, bears and some other groups are all predators that hunt and prey upon other animals. They are thus grouped together in the Order Carnivora, which includes meat eating animals. At the Class level, cats and other predatory animals are grouped with non-predators with whom they share specific biological traits.
All mammals have hair, are warm-blooded, and give birth to live young which feed via mammary glands.
At the Phylum level, cats are included with all other vertebrate animals in the subphylum Vertebrata, in the Phylum Chordata. This large grouping includes all animals having either a notochord, or an actual spine. Lastly, the most inclusive taxonomic grouping is the Kingdom. Biologists often delimit the basic taxonomic groupings used to classify all living things into a 5 kingdom scheme.