a kitty trivia stuff post

since I had to put at least 4 words in my heading but didn't need to :roll:

Kitty Trivia Tidbits

95% of cat owners talk to their cats.

A cat can be either right-pawed or left-pawed.

A cat can jump as much as seven times its height.

A cat cannot see directly under its nose. This is why the cat cannot seem to find tidbits on the floor.

A cat sees about six times better than a human at night because of the tapetum lucidum , a layer of extra reflecting cells which absorb light.

A cat has 230 bones in its body. A human only has 206 bones.

A cat uses its whiskers to determine if a space is too small to squeeze through. The whiskers act as feelers or antennae, helping the animal to judge the precise width of any passage.

A cat will almost never meow at another cat. Cats use this sound for humans.

A cat will clean itself with paw and tongue after a dangerous experience or when it has fought with another cat. This is believed to be an attempt by the animal to soothe its nerves by doing something natural and instinctive.

A cat will never break a sweat because it has no sweat glands.

A cat will spend nearly 30% of its life grooming itself.

A cat's arching back is part of a complex body language system, usually associated with feeling threatened. The arch is able to get so high because the cat's spine contains nearly 60 vertebrae which fit loosely together. Humans have only 34 vertebrae.

A cat's brain is more similar to a human's brain than that of a dog.

A cat's ear pivots 180 degrees.

A cat's hearing rates as one of the top in the animal kingdom. Cats can hear sounds as high-pitched as 65 kHz; a human's hearing stops at just 20 kHz.

A cat's jaws cannot move sideways.

A cat's tail held high means happiness. A twitching tail is a warning sign, and a tail tucked in close to the body is a sure sign of insecurity.

A cat's tail plays a vital part in the cat's balance and in the "righting reflex" that allows it to land on its feet after falling from a height.

A fifteen year old cat has probably spent ten years of its life sleeping.

Adult cats with no health problems are in deep sleep 15 percent of their lives. They are in light sleep 50 percent of the time.

Cats average 16 hours of sleep a day, more than any other mammal.

A frightened cat can run at speeds of up to 31 mph, slightly faster than a human sprinter.

A group of adult cats is called a clowder.

A group of kittens is called a kindle.

A large majority of white cats with blue eyes are deaf. White cats with only one blue eye are deaf only in the ear closest to the blue eye.

After being handled, cats lick themselves to smooth their fur and get rid of the "human" smell. Licking is also thought to produce a calming effect.

All cats are born with blue eyes.

Black cat superstitions originated in America. In Asia and England, a black cat is considered lucky.

Both humans and cats have identical regions in the brain responsible for emotion.

Cat families usually play best in even numbers. Cats and kittens should be acquired in pairs whenever possible.

Cats are sometimes born with extra toes. This is called polydactyl.

Cats have about 100 different vocalization sounds. In comparison, dogs have about 10.

Cats have amazing hearing ability. A cat's ear has 30 muscles that control the outer ear (by comparison, human ears only have six muscles). These muscles rotate 180 degrees, so the cat can hear in all directions without moving its head.

Cats have better memories than dogs. Tests conducted by the University of Michigan concluded that while a dogs memory lasts no more than 5 minutes, a cat's can last as long as 16 hours - exceeding even that of monkeys and orangutans.

Cats lack a true collarbone and can generally squeeze their bodies through any space they can get their heads through.

Cats only need a sixth the amount of light that humans do to see. However, their daytime vision is only fair compared to that of humans.

Cats purr at about 26 cycles per second, the same frequency as an idling diesel engine.

Cats scratch to shed the sheaths of their old claws.

Ernest Hemingway once had some 30 cats at his home in Havana.

If your cat is in the habit of rolling over and exposing his stomach, you can be sure he feels perfectly safe with you. It's also a way of demonstrating his pleasure in your company.

In 1888, an estimated 300,000 mummified cats were found at Beni Hassan, Egypt. They were sold at $18.43 per ton, and shipped to England to be ground up and used for fertilizer.

In ancient Egypt, the entire family would shave their eyebrows off as a sign of mourning when the family cat died.

In cats, the calico and tortoiseshell coats are sex-linked traits. All cats displaying these coats are female... or occasionally sterile males.

In relation to their body size, cats have the largest eyes of any mammal.

In the 9th century, King Henry I of Saxony decreed that the fine for killing a cat should be sixty bushels of corn.

Many of a cat's bones are found in its tail.

More than 30 percent of American households have a cat as part of the family

Morris, the 9-Lives cat, was discovered at an animal shelter in New England.

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

Newborn kittens have closed ear canals that don't begin to open for nine days.

Perhaps the oldest known female cat was Ma, from Devon, who was 34 when she died in 1957.

Purring is part of every cat's repertoire of social communication, apparently created by the movement of air in spasms through contractions of the diaphragm. Interestingly, purring is sometimes heard in cats who are severely ill or anxious, perhaps as a self-comforting vocalization. But, more typically, it is a sign of contentment, first heard in kittens as they suckle milk from their mother.

Siamese cats originated in Siam-modern day Thailand. Legend has it that they were the companions of kings and priests and that they guarded temples. Some trace Siamese origins to Egypt and Burma, but many dispute this idea. Siamese were first brought to England in the late 1800s.

Sir Isaac Newton, who first described the principle of gravity, also invented the swinging cat door for the convenience of his many cats.

The ancestor of all domestic cats is the African Wild Cat, which still exists today.

The average canned or dry cat meal is the nutritional equivalent of eating five mice.

The cheetah is the only cat in the world that can't retract its claws.

The color of the points in Siamese cats is heat related. Cool areas are darker. In fact, 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 declawing of a pet cat involves surgery called an onychectomy, in which the entire claw and end bone of each toe of the animal are amputated.

The domestic cat is the only cat species able to hold its tail vertically while walking. All wild cats hold their tails horizontally or tucked between their legs while walking. A tail held high means happiness; a twitching tail is a warning sign; and a tucked tail is a sign of insecurity.

The giraffe, camel, and cat are the only animals that walk by both their left feet, then both their right feet when walking.

The heaviest cat ever recorded weighed 46 lbs.

The only domestic animal not mentioned in the Bible is the cat.

The penalty for killing a cat, 4,000 years ago in Egypt, was death.

The Persian cat has the longest and thickest fur of all domestic cats. The topcoat may be up to 5 inches long.

The phenomenon of cats finding their owners in a place where they have never been before is scientifically known as Psi-trailing. Many well-documented stories tell of cats that have walked hundreds, even thousands of miles to find their owners.

The Turkish Van, a very old rare breed that originated in Turkey, is quite different from other breeds because of its unusual love of water. Known as "the swimming cat," the Van is strong, quick and agile. He makes a devoted and loyal companion--on land or at sea.

There are more than 500 million domestic cats, with either 35 different breeds (according to The Cat Fanciers Association, the world's largest cat registry), or 38 breeds (as recognized by The International Cat Association, the second largest registry).

To drink, a cat laps liquid from the underside of its tongue, rather than the top.

Winston Churchill, adored cats. Churchill used to refer to his cat, "Jock," as his special assistant. "Jock" was reported to be on the bed with his master on the day the great British statesman died.

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.

Young cats can distinguish between two identical sounds that are just 18 inches apart at a distance of up to 60 feet.

 

When I moved to the US from the UK I did wonder why people treated black cats as a 'bad' omen....Id always known them to be a good one.

Thanks, that was interesting.

 

A lot of interesting stuff there! :y_the_best:

Here in Norway black cats crossing the road is a bad omen...

 

Very interesting. Thanks for sharing Mary. :y_the_best:

 

Thank you Mary for the very interesting info! :y_the_best:

 

Thanks for posting this, Mary. I learned a lot of new things. Cats are just wonderful. :mrgreen:

 

Very interesting. Kitties are very unique. :m27:

 

wonderful posts mary...great information, and soo interesting....

 

Thanks for that Mary.... :y_the_best: