More Cat Trivia
Contrary to popular belief, the cat is a social animal. A pet cat will
respond and answer to speech, and
seems to enjoy human companionship.
Cats can purr to express pain or fear in addition to expressing pleasure.
Female cats often purr when they are
in labour, as well as when they are
nursing their kittens.
A cat's sense of smell is 14 times stronger than a human's.
Besides their noses, cats can smell with something
called the "Jacobson's
organ", located in the upper surface of their mouths. This is what cats are
using
when they scrunch up their eyes and open their mouths after sniffing
something intently.
The nose pad of a cat is ridged in a pattern that is unique, just like the
fingerprint of a human.
A cat cannot see directly under its nose. This is why the cat cannot seem to
find tidbits on the floor.
Cats have 32 muscles in each ear.
Cats respond most readily to names that end in an "ee" sound.
Cats have about 100 different vocalisation sounds. In comparison, dogs have
about 10.
A cats hearing is incredibly sharp. They can recognize their owners
footsteps from hundreds of feet away.
Though cats have an incredible sense of hearing, and it takes a kitten about
two weeks to begin to hear well.
Cats are said to see colour. Studies have been able to prove that cats can
distinguish between red and green;
red and blue; red and gray; green and
blue; green and gray; blue and gray; yellow and blue, and yellow
and gray.
Although cats can see in color, they are partially color-blind. They have
the equivalency of human
red/green color blindness. (Reds appear green and
greens appear red; or shades thereof.)
Cats have a full inner-eyelid, or nictitating membrane. This inner-eyelid
serves to help protect the eyes from
dryness and damage. When the cat is
ill, the inner-eyelid will frequently close partially, making it visible
to
the observer.
Most cats have no eyelashes.
You can tell a cat's mood by looking into its eyes. A frightened or excited
cat will have large, round pupils.
An angry cat will have narrow pupils. The
pupil size is related as much to the cat's emotions as to the
degree of
light.
Whiskers tell a cat whether the space they are entering is big enough for
it.
The bottom two rows of whiskers on a cat can move independently of the top
two rows.
Ailurophilia means "the love of cats". People who like cats are called
ailurophiles.
Ailurophobia means "the fear of cats". People who fear cats are called
ailurophobes.
Mother cats are properly referred to as Dams, and a female cat raised solely
for breeding is called a Queen.
The father cat is properly called the Sire.
Many cats cannot properly digest cow's milk. Milk and milk products give
them diarrhea.
Though rare, cats can contract canine heartworms.
Cats are subject to gum disease and to dental caries. They should have their
teeth cleaned by the vet
or the cat dentist once a year.
Cats with white fur and skin on their ears are very prone to sunburn.
Frequent sunburns can lead to skin
cancer. Many white cats need surgery to
remove all or part of a cancerous ear. Preventive measures
include
sunscreen, or better, keeping the cat indoors.
Cats can get tapeworms from eating fleas. These worms live inside the cat
forever, or until they are
removed with medication. They reproduce by
shedding a link from the end of their long bodies. This link crawls
out the
cat's anus, and sheds hundreds of eggs. These eggs are ingested by flea
larvae, and the cycles
continues. Humans may get these tapeworms too, but
only if they eat infected fleas. Cats with tapeworms
should be dewormed by a
veterinarian.
Cats can get tapeworms from eating mice. If your cat catches a mouse it is
best to take the prize away from it.
Cats, especially older cats, do get cancer. Many times this disease can be
treated successfully.
There are tiny, parasitic worms that can live in a cat's stomach. These
worms cause frequent vomiting.
Many people fear catching a protozoan disease, Toxoplasmosis, from cats.
This disease can cause illness in
the human, but more seriously, can cause
birth defects in the unborn. Toxoplasmosis is a common disease,
sometimes
spread through the feces of cats. It is caused most often from eating raw or
rare beef.
Pregnant women and people with a depressed immune system should
not touch the cat litter box. Other than
that, there is no reason that these
people have to avoid cats.
25% of cat owners blow dry their cats fur after a bath.
The word cat in other languages: French = "chat", German = "katze", Spanish
= "gato", Greek = "gata",
Italian = "gatto", Japanese = "neko", and Arabic =
"kitte".
Sir Isaac Newton, discoverer of the principles of gravity, also invented the
cat door.
There are three body types for a cat. Cobby type is a compact body, deep
chest, short legs and broad head.
The eyes are large and round. Muscular
type is a sturdy body and round, full-cheeked head. Foreign type
is a
slender body, with long legs and a long tail. The head is wedge-shaped, with
tall ears and slanting eyes.
Imprisoned by Henry VIII in the Tower of London, Sir Henry Wyatt, close to
starvation, was saved by a cat
who showed up with a pigeon in its mouth for
him to dine on.
According to the Guinness Book of World Records, the richest felines is a
pair of cats who in the early
1960's inherited $415,000. The richest single
cat is a white alley cat who inherited $250,000.
The first formal cat show was held in England in 1871; the first in America
was in 1895.
It has been scientifically proven that stroking a cat can lower one's blood
pressure.
To drink, a cat laps liquid from the underside of its tongue, rather than
the top.
Female cats can reach adulthood in as little as five months, but male cats
can take nine months to a year
to reach adulthood. Most breeds of cats have
reached their full growth by two years.
Cats aren't hunters by nature - their mothers teach them to hunt.
Cats only sweat from the pads of their paws. Ever notice how wet the
examination room table gets when you
take your cat to the vet?
Cats have five toes on each front paw, but only four toes on each back paw.
When well treated, a cat can live twenty or more years.
People who are allergic to cats are actually allergic to cat saliva or to
cat dander. If the resident cat is bathed
regularly the allergic people
tolerate it better.
Studies now show that the allergen in cats is related to their scent glands.
Cats have scent glands on their faces and at the base of their tails. Entire
male cats generate the most scent.
If this secretion from the scent glands
is the allergen, allergic people should tolerate spayed female cats
the
best.
A cat is pregnant for about 58 to 65 days. This is roughly two months.
Cats respond better to women than men. One reason this might be is that
women have higher pitched voices
which reminds cats of a mother cat calling
her kittens.
White paws on cats are referred to as gloves, but they are often called
boots.
White cats with blue eyes are often born deaf. The reason for this is
because the gene that gives them
the white coat is connected to deafness.
The roughness of a cat's tongue has a very useful purpose. It gives the cat
an extremely effective grooming
tool with which to clean their fur and paws.
The cat is one of nature's cleanest animals. Cats spend around 30% of their
time grooming themselves.
Because cats have an amazing sense of balance they rarely become ill when
travelling by car.
The average life expectancy of a cat is between 15 to 18 years although the
oldest cat on record lived to
be 36 years old.
The oldest reliably
recorded cat was a female tabby named Ma, who lived to the age of 34.
Cats should not be fed raw egg whites because they contain an enzyme that
breaks down the vitamin biotin,
which is essential to cat health.
The oldest known fossilized record that has a similarity to today's cats has
been aged at 12 million years old.
Fish isn't a "natural" food for cats. Cat origins are in the desert where
rodents, birds, and insects are found,
not fish. One theory that explains
why cats today eat fish is that during World War II, meat was scarce,
expensive, carefully rationed. Cat food manufacturers had to find a cheap
source of protein,
so they started to use fish and fish by-products in cat
food. Except for one cat breed in India, in the wild, cats won't hunt for
fish.
