Interesting Facts about Cats

When I started working on todays post, I kept thinking about the odd things my cats do and wondered if there were facts that could explain their behavior. After visiting my favorite search engine I came across an article that has multiple random facts about cats…99 in fact! Some facts answer questions I have often asked myself about cat’s behavior, and some are just plain interesting. Below are a few of my favorites, and I also included the link for you to check out the rest for yourself!

· On average, cats spend 2/3 of every day sleeping. That means a nine-year-old cat has been awake for only three years of its life.

· Female cats tend to be right pawed, while male cats are more often left pawed. Interestingly, while 90% of humans are right handed, the remaining 10% of lefties also tend to be male.

· A cat can’t climb head first down a tree because every claw on a cat’s paw points the same way. To get down from a tree, a cat must back down.

· Cats make about 100 different sounds. Dogs make only about 10.

· A cat’s brain is biologically more similar to a human brain than it is to a dog’s. Both humans and cats have identical regions in their brains that are responsible for emotions.

· A cat can jump up to five times its own height in a single bound.

· Some cats have survived falls of over 65 feet (20 meters), due largely to their “righting reflex.” The eyes and balance organs in the inner ear tell it where it is in space so the cat can land on its feet. Even cats without a tail have this ability.

· While many parts of Europe and North America consider the black cat a sign of bad luck, in Britain and Australia, black cats are considered lucky.

· A cat’s eyesight is both better and worse than humans. It is better because cats can see in much dimmer light and they have a wider peripheral view. It’s worse because they don’t see color as well as humans do. Scientists believe grass appears red to cats.

· Spanish-Jewish folklore recounts that Adam’s first wife, Lilith, became a black vampirecat, sucking the blood from sleeping babies. This may be the root of the superstition that a cat will smother a sleeping baby or suck out the child’s breath.

· A cat’s jaw can’t move sideways, so a cat can’t chew large chunks of food.

· A cat almost never meows at another cat, mostly just humans. Cats typically will spit, purr, and hiss at other cats.

· Cats have 32 muscles that control the outer ear (humans have only 6). A cat can independently rotate its ears 180 degrees.

· One reason that kittens sleep so much is because a growth hormone is released only during sleep.

· The normal body temperature of a cat is between 100.5 ° and 102.5 °F. A cat is sick if its temperature goes below 100 ° or above 103 °F.

· A cat has 230 bones in its body. A human has 206. A cat has no collarbone, so it can fit through any opening the size of its head.

· If they have ample water, cats can tolerate temperatures up to 133 °F.

· Foods that should not be given to cats include onions, garlic, green tomatoes, raw potatoes, chocolate, grapes, and raisins. Though milk is not toxic, it can cause an upset stomach and gas. Tylenol and aspirin are extremely toxic to cats, as are many common houseplants. Feeding cats dog food or canned tuna that's for human consumption can cause malnutrition.

· Cats don’t have sweat glands over their bodies like humans do. Instead, they sweat only through their paws.

· Cats spend nearly 1/3 of their waking hours cleaning themselves.

· There are up to 60 million feral cats in the United States alone.

· The most traveled cat is Hamlet, who escaped from his carrier while on a flight. He hid for seven weeks behind a pane. By the time he was discovered, he had traveled nearly 373,000 miles (600,000 km).^c

· The cat who holds the record for the longest non-fatal fall is Andy. He fell from the 16^thfloor of an apartment building (about 200 ft/.06 km) and survived.

· The richest cat is Blackie who was left £15 million by his owner, Ben Rea.

After reading this list of facts I have come to the conclusion that Chance and Bell spend 2/3 of their life sleeping and a third of the 1/3 not spent sleeping grooming….WOOHOO party animals! Here is proof of their laziness, enjoy!

Source: http://facts.randomhistory.com/interesting-facts-about-cats.html