A Few Facts To Purr About!
Click a Star to Rate This Post
All cat’s are not alike! I’ll be including many little tidbits of info as we write about our meow-er’s…so come back often.
The better to hear you with:
- The color of cats can indicate possible future hearing problems they may have, including the color of their eyes. Not true in all cases, but indicators are, that white cats are more prone to deafness than other cats. The white cats who have those beautiful baby blue eyes have even even more susceptibility for loss of hearing. White cats with orange eyes have less hearing loss than their blue eyed friends.
Who knew?
- Cats ears contain many more muscles than the ears of humans, which is why they can rotate their ears as much as 180 degrees to locate the source of a sound. Information sources vary, but indicate that cats have at least ten ear muscle, and maybe as many as thirty!!
- Cats have one of the best senses of hearing in the animal kingdom. From a few hundred feet, they can recognize the footsteps of their owners. Most animals are tone deaf, but cats can distinguish between half tones. Keep them away from bats, because when cats hear bats fluttering their wings, it sounds like a drum roll. That’s got to be uncomfortable!
- Cats are very sensitve to high-pitched sounds, hearing up to two octaves higher than the highest note that human beings hear. Inside their cute little heads are two pretty large echo chambers, known as bullae, which are helpful in detecting the high-pitched sounds that their small prey make. No wonder they catch those mice!
- A cat can hear sounds as high as 50,000 cycles per second versus 40,000 cycles per second for a dog and 20,000 c.p.s for a human being. Better keep your voice down if you don’t want them to hear you!
- When a cat purrs, the sound does not emanate from it’s voice box where its meows come from. Scientists are not sure how purrs are made, but one theory is that they are produced by a vibration of blood flowing from a vein in the chest cavity and amplified in the windpipe.
- Some cats will respond to the sight and sound of TV. Several companies have produce videotapes for cats to which they will react. (Such as Video Catnip, Pet Avision, Inc. PO Box 102, Morgantown, WV 26507)
Cat Talk:
- Cats have a language but little is known about it. Studies indicate that cats have a 100 “word” vocabulary and thirteen distinct vowel sounds and seven or eight consonant sounds. It is known that mother cats make a sound that calls kittens back to the “nest.” Another sound communicates the size of the prey a cat is chasing. Cats have a larger “vocabulary” than dogs, according to Alphonse Leon Grimaldi, a Parisian professor.
However, I know some animal lovers who might disagree, and certainly many dogs for the handicap have larger vocabularies, such as the Laboradors. Guide Dogs can learn as many as 3000+ words, commands, and phrases in their lifetime.
Come back soon, for more about your cat!
All About Your Cat Facts | MsMeow | 
October 1, 2008 9:24 pm
