"Additionally, they’ve discovered the remains of several critters, including cockroaches, rats and at least two domestic cats."<p>The idea that we've recovered identifiable cockroaches that have been submerged for almost 500 years breaks a few ideas I had about reality.
><i>The two felines—one adult, one juvenile—appear to have been cared for by the sailors</i><p>so, these were ship's cats rather than passenger or cargo cats.<p><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ship%27s_cat" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ship%27s_cat</a><p><i>"The ship's cat has been a common feature on many trading, exploration, and naval ships dating to ancient times... most importantly to control rodents"</i><p>and one presumes others were on most every other ship to have plied those waters
I’m surprised there would be any skeletal remains at all after 400+ years. The article is light on science but the original paper mentions Isotopic analysis which is very interesting.