猫 (traditional 貓) joins the beast radical with 苗 (seedlings, also the sound miáo — listen: it meows). Cats earned their place in China guarding grain sprouts from mice — the character plants them right in the field they protected.
猫 says its own name: māo is one of the world's most onomatopoeic animal words. Cats guarded granaries along the Silk Road, and today 吸猫 ('inhaling cat') is slang for obsessively cuddling one. 熊猫 (bear-cat) is the panda — China's fluffiest ambassador. Deng Xiaoping's famous pragmatism: 'black cat or white cat, if it catches mice it's a good cat' — 猫 even shaped economic policy.
The animal 犭 in the seedlings 苗 saying 'miáo~' — CAT.
熊猫 'bear-cat' — the panda's Chinese name files it, adorably, under cat.