…Interesting Facts about Cats (Part 1)
“1. Unlike dogs, cats do not have a
sweet tooth. Scientists believe this is due to a mutation in a key taste
receptor.
2. When a cat chases its
prey, it keeps its head level. Dogs & humans bob their heads up & down.
3. The technical term for
a cat’s hairball is a ‘bezoar.’
4. A group of cats is
called a ‘clowder.’
5. 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.
6. Cats make about 100
different sounds. Dogs make only about 10…
7. There are more than 500 million domestic cats
in the world, with approximately 40 recognized breeds.
8. While it is commonly thought that the ancient
Egyptians were the first to domesticate cats, the oldest known pet cat was
recently found in a 9,500-year-old grave on the Mediterranean island of Cyprus.
This grave predates early Egyptian art depicting cats by 4,000 years or more…
9. The group of words associated with cat (catt, cath, chat, katze)
stem from the Latin catus,
meaning domestic cat, as opposed to feles, or wild cat.
10. The term ‘puss’ is the root of the principal word
for ‘cat’ in the Romanian term pisica & the root of secondary words in
Lithuanian (puz) & Low
German puus. Some scholars
suggest that ‘puss’ could be imitative of the hissing sound used to get a cat’s
attention. As a slang word for the female pudenda, it could be associated with
the connotation of a cat being soft, warm, & fuzzy.
11. Approximately 40,000 people are bitten by cats
in the U.S. annually.
12. Cats are North America’s most popular pets:
there are 73 million cats compared to 63 million dogs. Over 30% of households
in North America own a cat.
13. According to Hebrew legend, Noah prayed to God
for help protecting all the food he stored on the ark from being eaten by rats.
In reply, God made the lion sneeze, & out popped a cat.
14. A cat’s hearing is better than a dog’s. And a
cat can hear high-frequency sounds up to 2 octaves higher than a human.
15. A cat can travel at a top speed of
approximately 31 mph (49 km) over a short distance.
16. A cat rubs against people not only to be
affectionate but also to mark out its territory with scent glands around its
face. The tail area & paws also carry the cat’s scent.
17. Researchers are unsure exactly how a cat purrs.
Most veterinarians believe that a cat purrs by vibrating vocal folds deep in
the throat. To do this, a muscle in the larynx opens & closes the air
passage about 25 times per second.
18.
When a
family cat died in ancient Egypt, family members would mourn by shaving off
their eyebrows. They also held elaborate funerals during which they drank wine
& beat their breasts. The cat was embalmed with a sculpted wooden mask
& the tiny mummy was placed in the family tomb or in a pet cemetery with
tiny mummies of mice...
19. Most cats give birth
to a litter of between 1 & 9 kittens. The largest known litter ever
produced was 19 kittens, of which 15 survived.
20. Smuggling a cat out of
ancient Egypt was punishable by death. Phoenician traders eventually succeeded
in smuggling felines, which they sold to rich people in Athens & other
important cities.
21. The earliest ancestor
of the modern cat lived about 30 million years ago. Scientists called it the
Proailurus, which means ‘first cat’ in Greek. The group of animals that pet
cats belong to emerged around 12 million years ago.
22. The biggest wildcat today is the Siberian Tiger.
It can be more than 12 feet (3.6 m) long (about the size of a small car) &
weigh up to 700 pounds (317 kg).
23. A cat’s brain is biologically more similar to a
human brain than it is to a dog’s. Both humans & cats have identical
regions in their brains that are responsible for emotions.
24. Many Egyptians worshipped the goddess Bast, who
had a woman’s body & a cat’s head.
25. Mohammed loved cats and reportedly his
favorite cat, Muezza, was a tabby. Legend says that tabby cats have an ‘M’ for
Mohammed on top of their heads because Mohammad would often rest his hand on
the cat’s head.
26. While many parts of Europe & North America
consider the black cat a sign of bad luck, in Britain & Australia, black
cats are considered lucky.
27. The most popular pedigreed cat is the Persian
cat, followed by the Main Coon cat & the Siamese cat.
28. The smallest pedigreed cat is a Singapura, which
can weigh just 4 lbs (1.8 kg), or about 5 large cans of cat food. The largest
pedigreed cats are Maine Coon cats, which can weigh 25 lbs (11.3 kg), or nearly
twice as much as an average cat weighs.
29. Some cats have survived falls of over 65 ft
(20 meters), due largely to their ‘righting reflex.’ The eyes & 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.
30. Some Siamese cats appear cross-eyed because the
nerves from the left side of the brain go to mostly the right eye & the
nerves from the right side of the brain go mostly to the left eye. This causes
some double vision, which the cat tries to correct by ‘crossing’ its eyes.
31. Researchers believe the word ‘tabby’ comes from
Attabiyah, a neighborhood in Baghdad, Iraq. Tabbies got their name because
their striped coats resembled the famous wavy patterns in the silk produced in
this city.
32. A cat can jump up to 5 times its own height in
a single bound.
33. Cats hate the water because their fur does not
insulate well when it’s wet. The Turkish Van, however, is one cat that likes
swimming. Bred in central Asia, its coat has a unique texture that makes it
water resistant.
34. The Egyptian Mau is probably the oldest breed
of cat. In fact, the breed is so ancient that its name is the Egyptian word for
‘cat.’
35. The first commercially cloned pet was a cat
named ‘Little Nicky.’ He cost his owner $50,000, making him one of the most
expensive cats ever.
36. A cat usually has about 12 whiskers on each
side of its face.
37. A cat’s eyesight is both better & worse
than humans. It is better because cats can see in much dimmer light & 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…
38. Perhaps the most famous comic cat is the
Cheshire Cat in Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland. With the ability to
disappear, this mysterious character embodies the magic & sorcery
historically associated with cats.
39. The smallest wildcat today is the Black-footed
cat. The females are less than 20 inches (50 cm) long & can weigh as little
as 2.5 lbs (1.2 kg).
40. On
average, cats spend 2/3 of every day sleeping. That means a 9-yr.-old cat has
been awake for only 3 years of its life.
41. In the original Italian version of Cinderella,
the benevolent fairy godmother figure was a cat.
42. The little tufts of hair in a cat’s ear that
help keep out dirt direct sounds into the ear, & insulate the ears are
called ‘ear furnishings.’
43. The ability of a cat to find its way home is
called ‘psi-traveling.’ Experts think cats either use the angle of the sunlight
to find their way or that cats have magnetized cells in their brains that act
as compasses.
44. Isaac Newton invented the cat flap. Newton was
experimenting in a pitch-black room. Spithead, one of his cats, kept opening
the door & wrecking his experiment. The cat flap kept both Newton &
Spithead happy.
45. The world’s rarest coffee, Kopi Luwak, comes
from Indonesia where a wildcat known as the luwak lives. The cat eats coffee
berries & the coffee beans inside pass through the stomach. The beans are
harvested from the cat’s dung heaps & then cleaned & roasted. Kopi
Luwak sells for about $500 for a 450 g (1 lb) bag.
46. A cat’s jaw can’t move sideways, so a cat can’t
chew large chunks of food.
47. Cats don't actually meow at each other, just at
humans. Cats typically will spit, purr, & hiss at other cats.
48. 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.
49. A cat’s back is extremely flexible because it
has up to 53 loosely fitting vertebrae. Humans only have 34.
50. All cats have claws, & all except the
cheetah sheath them when at rest.
Karin
Lehnardt
August
19/2016
factretriever.com/cat-facts
Cute Cat Pic
Weekly Chuckle
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