Cat Trivia
People who own pets live longer, have less stress, and have fewer heart
attacks.
Cats love to chew on grass, catnip, cat-thyme, parsley or sage.
There are two species of wild cats in African and Europe that still hunt -
these two species both resemble
domestic tabbies.
The behaviors shown by most house cats have a parallel in the wild.
Most cats with orange fur are male. It is extremely rare for a female cat to have orange fur.
The average age for an indoor cat is 15 years, while the average age for an
outdoor cat is only 3 to 5 years.
The oldest cat on record was Puss, from England, who died in 1939 just one
day after her 36th birthday.
The strangest cat on record was a female called Mincho who went up a tree in
Argentina and didn't come down
again until she died six years later. While
treed, she managed to have three litters with equally ambitious dads.
A cat's normal body temperature is 101.5 degrees. This is slightly warmer
than a humans.
A cat will kill it's prey based on movement, but may not necessarily
recognize that prey as food. Realizing that
prey is food is a learned
behavior.
A cat's eyes, whiskers, and ears will tell you what "mood" your cat is in.
The greatest number of mice killed by one cat is 28,899. Towser, a
tortoise-shell tabby in charge of rodent
control in Scotland, killed 28,899
mice in her 21 years. This is about four mice per day, every day, for 21
years.
Towser died in 1987.
The first cat show was held in 1895 at Madison Square Garden in New York
City, New York.
A falling cat will always right itself in a precise order. First the head
will rotate, then the spine will twist
and the rear legs will align, then
the cat will arch its back to lessen the impact of the landing.
Cats are "Sociable" cats will follow you from room to room to monitor your activities
throughout the day.
Siamese kittens are born white because of the heat inside the mother's
uterus before birth. This heat keeps the
kittens' hair from darkening on the
points.
The largest litter of kittens on record is 19, from a Burmese/Siamese cat in
1970.
Kittens are born with both eyes and ears closed. When the eyes open, they
are always blue at first. They
change color over a period of months to the
final eye color.
Don't pick a kitten or a cat up by the scruff of its neck; only mother cats
can do this safely, and only with their
kittens.
In the USA, the most popular names for female cats are Missy, Misty, Muffin,
Patches, Fluffy, Tabitha,
Tigger, Pumpkin and Samantha.
Kitten's eyes usually open between 7 to 10 days after birth, but it
occasionally they open within 2 or 3 days.
Cats have true fur, in that they have both an undercoat and an outer coat.
The color of the points in Siamese cats is heat related. Cool areas are
darker.
A cat's heart beats twice as fast as a human heart, at 110 to 140 beats per
minute.
Cats have 290 bones in their bodies, and 517 muscles.
A cat has five more vertebrae in its spinal column than a human does.
Cats have AB blood groups just like humans.
Cats lack a true collarbone. Because of this lack, cats can generally
squeeze their bodies through any space
they can get their heads through. You
may have seen a cat testing the size of an opening by careful
measurement
with the head.
Scientific studies have compared and examined both a cat's brain and a dog's
brain. The results established
that the cat's brain is more similar to a
humans than that of a dog.
Almost 10% of a cat's bones is in its tail. The cat's body contains 245
bones, but as they age some of the bones
fuse together and the number of
bones decreases.
Cats have only thirty teeth. Kittens have baby teeth which are replaced by
permanent fangs at around seven
months of age.
Cats wag their tails when it is in a stage of conflict. The cat wants to do
two things at once, but each impulse
blocks the other. For example: If your
cat is in the doorway wanting to go outside, and you open the door to
find
it raining, the cat's tail will wag because of internal conflict. The cat
wants to go outside, but doesn't want
to go into the rain. Once the cat
makes a decision and either returns to the house or leaves into the rain,
the
tail will immediately stop wagging.
If your cat is near you, and her tail is quivering, this is the greatest
expression of love your cat can give you. If
her tail starts thrashing, her
mood has changed and it's time to distance yourself from her.
The domestic cat is the only species able to hold its tail vertically while
walking. Wild cats hold their tail
horizontally, or tucked between their
legs while walking.
There are more than 500 million domestic cats in the world, with 33
different breeds.
The American cat population reached nearly 68 million in 1996. American
Demographics magazine estimates
that's about 200 million kitty yawns per
hour and a whopping 425 million catnaps each day!
An average cat has 1 to 8 kittens per litter, and 2 to 3 litters per year.
During her productive life, one female
cat could have more than 100 kittens.
In 1952, a Texas Tabby named Dusty set the record by having more than 420
kittens before having her last
litter at age 18.
A single pair of cats and their kittens can produce as many as 420,000
kittens in just seven years. Please spay
or neuter your pet.
The largest known litter (with all surviving) was that of a Persian in South
Africa named Bluebell. Bluebell
gave birth to 14 kittens in one litter.
If left to her own devices, a female cat may have three to seven kittens
every four months. This is why population control using neutering and
spaying is so important.
The most prolific cat was a tabby named Dusty of Bonham, she lived in Texas,
and produced 420 kittens during
her life time.
The oldest feline mother Kitty, owned by George Johnstone of England
produced in May 1987, two kittens at
age 30. She died just short of her 32nd
birthday, having given birth to a known total of 218 kittens during her
lifetime.
The largest cat breed is the Ragdoll. Males weigh twelve to twenty pounds,
with females weighing ten
to fifteen pounds.
The smallest cat breed is the
Singapura. Males weigh about six pounds while females weigh about four
pounds.
The heaviest domestic cat on record was a neutered male tabby named Himmy,
weighing in at 46 lb. 15 ½ oz.
(neck 15 in., waist 33 in., length 38 in.)
The smallest domestic cat on record was a male blue point Himalayan-Persian
cat named Tinker Toy,
is just 2 ¾ in. tall and 7 ½ in. long.
The smallest species of cat is native to Africa: the Black-Footed Cat (Felis
Nigripes). Its top weight is
5.5 pounds which is considerably smaller than
the average housecat.
Cats can "read" your moods. If you're sad or stressed, you may also notice a
difference in your cat's behavior.
Cats knead with their paws when they're happy.
A cat will almost never "meow" at another cat. This sound is reserved for
humans.
Cats do not think that they are little people. They think that we are big
cats. This influences their behavior in
many ways.
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