Facts-Cat's Body Facts

CAT'S BODY FACTS

There are three body types for a cat. Cobby type is a compact body, deep chest, short legs and broad head. The eyes are large and round. Muscular type is a sturdy body and round, full-cheeked head. Foreign type is a slender body, with long legs and a long tail. The head is wedge-shaped, with tall ears and slanting eyes.

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.

The small patch of white fur on a cat's chest is known as a "locket".

Cats can’t really see in the dark and their daytime vision is best described as “fair” – but they can see better than their human families in semidarkness. Their eyes don’t really shine in the dark, either. Cats’ eyes contain highly reflective cells that collect light from very dim sources. When you flash a light on a cat in the darkness, these reflective cells make it appear that their eyes are glowing. Long thought to be color-blind, recent studies indicate that cats can distinguish between some basic colors when these colors are paired.

Cats offer sandpaper kisses due to tiny knobs called papillae on the surface of their tongues. They are shaped like backward hooks and are designed to hold food and to provide the abrasiveness cats need for good grooming.

Cats do walk differently from dogs! Cats, along with giraffes and camels, are the only animals with a gait in which front and hind legs move together first on one side, then on the other. Cats also are the only clawed creatures that walk on their claws rather than their paw pads. Cats are frequently born with six or more toes on one paw.

A domestic cat has eighteen claws: five on each of its front paws and four on each of its back paws.

Most cats with orange fur are male. It is extremely rare for a female cat to have orange fur.

A cat's normal body temperature is 101.5 degrees. This is slightly warmer than a humans.

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.

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.

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.

Kitten's eyes usually open between 7 to 10 days after birth, but it occasionally they open within 2 or 3 days.

Calico cats are almost always female. The gene in cats that causes the orange coat color is sexed linked, and is on the X sex chromosome. This gene may display orange or black. Thus, as female cat with two X chromosomes may have orange and black colors in its coat. A male, with only one X chromosome, can have only orange or black, not both.

Besides their noses, cats can smell with something called the "Jacobson's organ", located in the upper surface of their mouths. This is what cats are using when they scrunch up their eyes and open their mouths after sniffing something intently.

If a male cat is both orange and black it is (besides being extremely rare) sterile. To have both the orange and the black coat colors, the male cat must have all or part of both female X chromosomes. This unusual sex chromosome combination will render the male cat sterile.

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 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.

The nose pad of a cat is ridged in a pattern that is unique, just like the fingerprint of a human.

Cats are said to see colour. Studies have been able to prove that cats can distinguish between red and green; red and blue; red and gray; green and blue; green and gray; blue and gray; yellow and blue, and yellow and gray.

Cats have a full inner-eyelid, or nictitating membrane. This inner-eyelid serves to help protect the eyes from dryness and damage. When the cat is ill, the inner-eyelid will frequently close partially, making it visible to the observer.

Most cats have no eyelashes.

Cats’ whiskers, so long and stiff, should never be trimmed. Cats use their whiskers to find their way in the dark, determine whether or not he/she can get into or out of a tight place, and a host of other navigation tasks.

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

Cats only sweat from the pads of their paws. Ever notice how wet the examination room table gets when you take your cat to the vet?

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

Cats have scent glands on their faces and at the base of their tails. Entire male cats generate the most scent. If this secretion from the scent glands is the allergen, allergic people should tolerate spayed female cats the best.

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