"No, not exactly," they admit. They've met a lot of feline humanoids, that is, but not the same kind. Bothans, for instance, look very different. "But we learned about it in school. All of the history." And there is an awful lot of history; most of the details are obscure old facts that have been lost to time, but major details like who lived where and who was part of what ethnic group and when are things the cervoids still remember. It's their history, too.
"I'm not sure I understand; didn't your father teach you this?"