It's Saturday morning in Civita di Bagnoregio, and the locals are patrolling the medieval walls, eyeing the visitors as they make their way toward the village. As the tourists get closer, they call out to the locals -- who promptly flee. This, one of the most picture-perfect villages in Italy, is no ordinary tourist destination. And these are no ordinary locals.

For starters, they're cats -- a colony of some 20 felines that comprise Civita's main bloc of residents. The feline population is padded out with just 12 human beings. (If you think that's a small number, know that until October 2019 there were only 10.)