Simultaneously artistically graceful and hilariously uncoordinated, our cats see, experience and move through the world in a different way to us humans.
Any cat owner can tell you that behaviour-wise, domestic cats are virtually identical to their larger wild cousins.
Dogs have had both their size and behaviour modified through domestication over thousands of years, and while we have also existed alongside cats for millennia, we’ve really just bred them small enough to handle.
They still move and behave like apex predators, albeit ones who may not be at the actual apex of your household – despite what they may think.
They use the same five senses as humans – sight, hearing, smell, touch and taste – but all of them are heightened compared to yours. As a result, they experience the world a little differently to us and, frankly, a bit better than we can.
(Almost) perfect night vision
If your cat likes to run laps of the house at 3am, bouncing off every available surface, then you’re not alone. The speed at which they’re running makes you think that they must have perfect night vision, but this isn’t actually the case.
They do require some light to navigate, but only about one-sixth the amount a human requires, meaning your moggy can see almost perfectly in moonlight.
Cats as a species are mostly nocturnal animals, and millions of years of evolution has led to eyes specifically designed for low-light vision. Humans on the other hand, are mostly diurnal creatures and our eyes are built to keep excess sunlight out rather than letting it in.
Up close, cats’ corneas are larger than a human’s and protrude from the head. Their pupils are also long and vertical and can widen up to 300-fold to allow as much light as possible into the eye. For reference, a human pupil can only widen around 15-fold.
Cats are also able to ‘amplify’ what little light there is using a layer at the back of the eye called the tapetum lucidum. Not found in humans, this layer reflects back any light not absorbed by the eye the first time it passed, adding even more light for cats to see by. This is the reason cats’ eyes glow when you shine a light on them.
Smell
A kitten’s sense of smell is fully developed from birth, and it will use it to immediately find the nearest nipple it can suckle.
A cat’s sense of smell is 14 times more sensitive than a human’s due to their much larger olfactory epitheliums – specialised tissue in the nose that contains smell receptors. Cats have around 150-200 million smell receptors versus around five million in a human nose.
Maybe bear this in mind next time you decide the litter box isn’t smelling that bad – it likely smells much worse to your cat.
Touch and balance
Watching cats move, even just watching them play, reveals just how flexible they are and how much control they have over their balance. They seem to be able to judge in a split-second whether or not they can fit through a gap (they usually can).
Cats use their whiskers to do this, which are thicker and longer hairs protruding from the snout, attached to very sensitive receptors. They use the whiskers on either side of their face to quickly work out whether a gap is feasible before committing their whole bodies to it. Whiskers can also pick up changes in air pressure, humidity and other atmospheric conditions.
Cats have superb balance, and can right themselves after falling to land safely on their feet. They do this using the vestibular bone located inside the ear. Through vibrations in this bone, cats can instantly tell which way is up, angle their head in that direction and then the rest of their body soon follows.
They also have no collarbone and an extremely flexible spine, aiding movement even further.
So, there you have it, that lazy furball curled up at the end of your bed is actually a finely tuned, highly athletic hunting machine, and just happens to also like being scratched under the chin. Who doesn’t?
Do you own a cat? What’s the funniest thing you ever seen it do? Let us know in the comments section below.
Also read: How to deal with pet hair and smell at home
