Fun Feline Facts
Fun Feline Facts
For my final blog post of Adopt A [Shelter] Cat Month, I am going to be less medical and more fun. To that end, I am going to share with you my latest collection of fun feline facts.
Purring Pussycats
One of the most endearing qualities of cats is their ability to purr. In my mind, there is nothing better than a cat on my lap, snuggled in and purring away. Everyone can recognize purring, but I suspect few can define it. In Mammal Review, purring is defined as a continuous sound produced on alternating (pulmonic) egressive (breathing out) and ingressive (breathing in) airstream. Purring results from neural oscillation – neurons which turn on and off rapidly causing rhythmic contraction of the laryngeal muscles 20-30 times per second. Based on the above definition of purring, not all felines can purr. Those that do not purr are those that roar: the lion, tiger, jaguar, and leopard. All other felidae can purr.
Are Right-Handed Cats Nicer?
This is really two fun facts rolled into one. First, did you even consider your cat could be right or left handed? Probably not. But in a recent study in the International Journal of Neuroscience, female cats exhibited right handedness more than males when tested with a food reaching test. About 10% of all cats were ambidextrous. Although an ambidextrous cat might sound intriguing, a behavioral study found ambidextrous cats less affectionate and more aggressive than righty or lefty cats. Strongly right or left-pawed cats were determined to be more confident and affectionate than those with weaker paw preference.
Are Cats or Dogs Smarter?
The answer to this question is open to a great deal of bias depending on your affinity for felines or canines. Scientists have tried to answer this question with data rather than their heart. In a study published in Frontiers in Neuroanatomy, researchers found dogs possess about 530 million neurons in the cortex, while cats have about 250 million. Neurons in the brain often go unused, so just having more neurons does not necessarily make dogs smarter. In fact, when you think about cats, they are phenomenal hunters and can easily out hunt humans with their neuron-loaded brains. So the number of neurons in the cat brain is not necessarily related to intelligence; the answer may lie in the function of each of those neurons. This quote from Dr. Brian Hare at the Duke University Canine Cognition Center answers the question thoughtfully. “Asking which species is smarter is like asking if a hammer is a better tool than a screwdriver. Each tool is designed for a specific problem, so of course it depends on the problem we are trying to solve.”
Are you coming late to Adopt A [Shelter] Cat Month? Did you miss the first three feline-focused blog posts? Catch up here: