Fun Facts About Cats

Fun Facts About Cats: all 30, explained

1. Cats cannot taste sweetness.

   Cats lack a working version of one of the two genes needed for the sweet taste receptor. As strict carnivores, they had little use for detecting sugar. Lions and tigers share the same missing receptor.

   Source: Cat senses (Wikipedia) · Fact card

2. Cats sleep for around 12 to 16 hours a day.

   Cats are crepuscular, meaning they are most active around dawn and dusk. Between those bursts of hunting and play, they spend most of the day dozing, which saves energy for short, intense activity.

   Source: Cat (Wikipedia) · Fact card

3. Cats have a built-in reflex that turns them feet-first when they fall.

   The "righting reflex" lets a falling cat twist its body around to land on its feet. Kittens start to show it at around three to four weeks old and have it well developed by about seven weeks. Cats have a flexible backbone and no working collarbone, which helps.

   Source: Cat righting reflex (Wikipedia) · Fact card

4. Adult cats rarely meow at each other. They mostly meow at people.

   Kittens meow to their mothers, but adult cats mainly use hisses, growls, scent and body language with other cats. Meowing seems to have carried on into adulthood largely as a way to talk to humans.

   Source: Cat communication (Wikipedia) · Fact card

5. A cat was buried with a person in Cyprus about 9,500 years ago.

   Archaeologists on Cyprus found a cat buried close to a human in a grave dated to around 7500 BC. Cats are not native to Cyprus, so people must have brought them by boat, which shows cats lived alongside humans long before ancient Egypt.

   Source: Cat (Wikipedia) · Fact card

6. Cats have a third eyelid.

   The nictitating membrane is a thin inner eyelid that sweeps across the eye from the inner corner to protect and moisten it. You do not usually see it, but it can show when a cat is sleepy or unwell.

   Source: Nictitating membrane (Wikipedia) · Fact card

7. Cats purr when they are hurt or stressed, not only when they are happy.

   Cats purr while being stroked, but also while giving birth, recovering from injury or feeling anxious. The purr is made by fast twitching of the muscles in the larynx as the cat breathes in and out.

   Source: Purr (Wikipedia) · Fact card

8. A cat’s whiskers help it judge whether it can fit through a gap.

   Whiskers are thick, deeply rooted hairs packed with nerves. They pick up tiny changes in air movement and touch, helping a cat sense objects around it in the dark.

   Source: Whiskers (Wikipedia) · Fact card

9. Most cats have five toes on each front paw but only four on each back paw.

   Cats with extra toes are called polydactyl. The writer Ernest Hemingway’s house in Key West is still home to dozens of cats, many of them polydactyl descendants of his cat.

   Source: Polydactyl cat (Wikipedia) · Fact card

10. Cats walk like camels and giraffes, moving both legs on one side first.

    Walking cats move the front and back leg on the same side of the body almost together, a gait called pacing that few other animals use.

    Source: Cat anatomy (Wikipedia) · Fact card

11. Cats have no proper collarbone, so they can squeeze through tight spaces.

    A cat’s collarbone is tiny and not joined to other bones, which lets its shoulders move freely. If its head fits through a gap, the rest of the body usually can too.

    Source: Cat anatomy (Wikipedia) · Fact card

12. In ancient Egypt, families shaved their eyebrows to mourn a pet cat.

    The Greek historian Herodotus wrote that Egyptian households shaved their eyebrows when a cat died. Cats were linked with the goddess Bastet, and many were mummified.

    Source: Cats in ancient Egypt (Wikipedia) · Fact card

13. A slow blink from a cat is a friendly signal.

    Researchers found that cats are more likely to approach a person who slow-blinks at them, and often blink slowly back, which suggests it works as a sign of trust.

    Source: Cat communication (Wikipedia) · Fact card

14. Cats have around 200 million scent receptors. People have about 5 million.

    Cats also have a second scent organ in the roof of the mouth, the vomeronasal organ, which is why they sometimes open their mouths to sniff.

    Source: Cat senses (Wikipedia) · Fact card

15. Cats can swivel their ears independently, using about 30 muscles in each ear.

    Each ear can rotate on its own to pinpoint a sound, and cats can hear higher-pitched sounds than dogs.

    Source: Cat senses (Wikipedia) · Fact card

16. Pet cats descend from the African wildcat.

    Genetic studies show domestic cats come from the African wildcat of the Near East, which began living around early farming villages about 10,000 years ago.

    Source: African wildcat (Wikipedia) · Fact card

17. Cats spend a lot of their waking time grooming.

    Cats groom to keep clean, control body temperature and spread scent, and can spend a large share of their waking hours doing it.

    Source: Cat behavior (Wikipedia) · Fact card

18. A cat’s tongue is covered in tiny hooks.

    Backward-facing spines called papillae act like a comb, pulling loose fur and dirt out during grooming.

    Source: Cat anatomy (Wikipedia) · Fact card

19. Kneading is a habit cats keep from kittenhood.

    Kittens knead their mother to help milk flow. Adult cats often knead soft blankets or laps when they feel content.

    Source: Cat behavior (Wikipedia) · Fact card

20. Cats need about one sixth of the light we need to see.

    A reflective layer behind the retina, the tapetum lucidum, bounces light back through the eye. It is also why cats’ eyes glow in headlights.

    Source: Cat senses (Wikipedia) · Fact card

21. Cats can hear sounds far higher than people can.

    Cats hear up to about 64,000 hertz, well above the human limit of around 20,000 hertz, which helps them hear the squeaks of rodents.

    Source: Cat senses (Wikipedia) · Fact card

22. Cats can jump several times their own height.

    Powerful back legs and a flexible spine let cats leap onto surfaces up to about five or six times their body length above the ground.

    Source: Cat anatomy (Wikipedia) · Fact card

23. Most orange cats are male.

    The gene for orange fur sits on the X chromosome. Males need only one copy to be orange, so roughly 80% of orange cats are male.

    Source: Orange cat (Wikipedia) · Fact card

24. Almost all calico and tortoiseshell cats are female.

    These coat patterns need two X chromosomes, so male calicos are rare and usually sterile.

    Source: Calico cat (Wikipedia) · Fact card

25. Cats can taste ATP, a chemical in meat that people cannot taste.

    ATP (adenosine triphosphate) is found in living cells, so tasting it may help cats pick fresh prey.

    Source: Cat senses (Wikipedia) · Fact card

26. Cats sweat through their paws.

    Their sweat glands are mostly in the paw pads, which is why a nervous cat can leave damp paw prints.

    Source: Cat anatomy (Wikipedia) · Fact card

27. A French cat named Félicette went to space in 1963.

    Félicette flew on a French sounding rocket and was recovered alive after a 13-minute flight, the only cat to have gone to space.

    Source: Félicette (Wikipedia) · Fact card

28. The Maine Coon is one of the largest domestic cat breeds.

    Males often weigh 6 to 8 kilograms, and the breed is the official state cat of Maine.

    Source: Maine Coon (Wikipedia) · Fact card

29. Cats’ whiskers are as wide as their bodies.

    The whiskers on the muzzle roughly match the width of the cat, which is one reason they are good guides to tight spaces.

    Source: Whiskers (Wikipedia) · Fact card

30. Cats sailed on ships for centuries to catch rats.

    Ship’s cats protected food stores and ropes from rodents, and some, such as Unsinkable Sam, became famous.

    Source: Ship’s cat (Wikipedia) · Fact card