I'm pretty sure my species has been around longer than Earth cats because we prob'ly used to be like them and then had time to evolve to become us.

So it's more like Earth cats just happen to look like Ventrexians.

[He's bullshitting because he has no clue about how long cats on Earth have been around, but he could still be right. His species did need time to evolve from cat-like animals to bipedal sentience after all.]

[He's careful to check that none of the cats are there and lays on his back, letting himself get absorbed into the growing fluff collective.]

It's prob'ly like crabs. Almost every planet with some kind of temperate ocean has stuff that evolves into crabs. They call it something. Carcin - Carcizine-ing?

Maybe in some places, animals cat-acinize.