I wanted to write an article about the complex physical structure that allows cats to behave the way they do. My cat, Xena, quickly informed me she had better address the subject, so she has. You'll have to put your cats in front of the monitor, because she wrote it for them.
Feline Basics
It never hurts to know who you are and how your various parts work. With a little luck, you'll be able to impart some of this knowledge to your human. Here are just a few of the basics.
We're carnivorous mammals of the Felidae family and well designed for hunting (and sleeping). We have somewhere around 60 thousand hairs per square inch on our backs and an amazing 120 thousand hairs per square inch on our cute little bellies. (I don't shed. I simply add to the texture and decor of our home.) We have both an undercoat and an outer coat, and because we no longer need to camouflage ourselves, we have many more varieties of fur patterns and colors than our big cat brothers and sisters. Other than that we're pretty much the same cats we were thirty million years ago. With our sleek bodies, superb sight, excellent ears and remarkable leaping abilities we are hunting machines. To paraphrase a famous human philosopher: "I hunt, therefore I am."
We have over 230 bones and over 500 skeletal muscles. We don't have collarbones, the better to allow us entrance to anywhere we darn well please. Our spines are the reason for the suppleness of our movement. We have 30 vertebrae as opposed to 25 in humans and they have inflexible backbones and NO TAIL! We can run over 30 miles an hour and jump five to eight times our height, whereas humans can jump only a little more than half their height. Hey, Michael Jordan, how about a little one on one?
Our brains are more similar to human's than are dog brains. The order in rank I believe is cat brain, human brain and then dog brain. Our brains also contain an area that controls emotion just as the human brain. Really? When was the last time you sat and cried over a movie or a card you got in the mail? I think it's safe to say we both have emotions--one species controls them and the other doesn't.
Because you are purr-fect
Humans don't seem to know why we purr. Why do cats do anything? Because we want to. Rather than answer why, I'll explain how we purr. We breathe air over our vocal cords causing vibrations that are heard, and felt throughout our bodies. One human theory claims that purring happens because of rapid contractions of the muscles of the larynx. Good try folks, but I guess I should know. They also generally think we purr when we're happy. Heck, we purr all the time--they just aren't paying attention.
As we see it
Our eyes are relatively larger than any other animal's and most of us do not have eyelashes. We have an extra eyelid that is usually only visible if we don't feel well. Our day and night vision are both great and we have excellent depth perception so we can hunt and stalk from a distance, and then without warning, capture our prey. This also applies to those balls and toys your humans scatter around the house. Because of our large pupils, we have much better night vision than humans--quite an advantage when playing "catch me if you can." I know my mom has terrible night vision. I've watched her stumble around the house at night and whenever she steps on one of my toys, she apologizes to it. Of course, maybe she's just polite.
There's something you have to keep in mind when you are out and about in the evening hours. One of the reasons our night vision is so good is because of a special tissue behind the retina that reflects the light back out through our eyes causing them to "glow." This makes us easy to spot, and has the potential of turning us into prey.
One rather interesting, dare I say, "flaw" in our otherwise incredible vision is that we can't see something directly in front of our nose. We can smell it all right. We just don't see it and often will walk away from a few extra kibbles because we didn't see them.
We don't see colors the way most humans do. Unfortunately they don't know that and will buy toys that are bright red thinking they will be more interesting for us, when in fact what we see is a rather dull grey. Don't disappoint them. Pretend you like the red ball too.
We're all ears and then some
We have great hearing to compensate for a questionable sense of smell. We hear much higher pitched sounds than our humans or their canine friends (our range is between 100 and 65 thousand Hz), but the best thing about our ears is that they turn. Humans have six muscles for the outer ear. We have 30, giving us a sort of natural surround sound. We can rotate our ears 180 degrees and tune in on sound ten times faster than a dog.
Because of the way our ears are shaped, we can gather in sound and focus it into the ear channel. Since our hearing is three to four times more sensitive than that of our human, it's almost painful to listen to their TV or stereo. Feel free to use the remote to lower the volume on their noise boxes. If you do it in small increments your dad may not even notice and you will be doing him a great service by lessening the damage to his hearing too. Humans may yet learn that silence really is golden.
We also communicate a lot with the positioning of our ears. When we're quite comfortable, our ears are erect. On the rare occasion when we get scared, our ears press back on our heads. When we're investigating, they're erect and pointing to the front. When we turn our ears backwards--watch out. I think my mom has finally nailed that one.
Okay, I'll bite
We have 30 teeth: 12 incisors, 10 premolars, 4 felines, (oops) canines and 4 molars. Our canines grab on to our prey and because these teeth are embedded in sensitive tissue, we can feel the prey's movement. Our incisors hold on to it, our molars, and premolars chew it. I personally have totally massacred a number of little cloth mice with these ivories.
How do we use our tongues?
I guess the question could more aptly be, "How don't we use our tongues?" With the backward, scoop-like hairs that cover our tongues, we drink, eat, and remain very well groomed. Our tongues also have a special coating that removes old hair and dander. In addition, it helps our fur stay waterproof.
Smells as sweet
As I said earlier, our sense of smell isn't our strong suit, but we do have over 60 million olfactory cells and something called the Jacobson's Organ in the roof our mouth. It's behind our front teeth and it enables us to analyze the air. (Some bats and reptiles have this organ too.) People think we're grimacing or making a face when we lift our lips to draw air over the organ, but we're just checking things out. I don't need any extra organ to smell catnip though, do you?
Making scents of things
We use almost our entire bodies to figure out what is going on, or has gone on around us. Humans often think that when we rub up against them we're showing them love or affection. In fact, we're actually protecting them from intruders by leaving our scent.
We have glands in our paws that leave our scent as we walk. Humans, of course, can't smell this, but it's a great way to make our presence known to each other. We also have hairs like whiskers above our eyes and on either side of our mouths that take in information about our surroundings.
Our whiskers are special. They're stiffer than our fur and extremely sensitive. They're largely responsible for keeping us from banging into things when it's totally dark. Most of us have four rows of whiskers on our faces that we can push out for "feeling" our way around, or pull back flat in order to smell.
All of our senses are fine-tuned and help us survive and keep our humans as safe as we possibly can. Sniff, sense, touch, listen, watch, and most of all feel the vibrations in the air. Use your body with the precision of its design.
A tale of a tail
Ten percent of our bones are in our tail, which helps us stay balanced. I don't know about that. I think balance is every cat's middle name.
There's been quite a bit of human research on our tails and frankly, it's taken a lot of the fun out of it. Many humans now think they can analyze our mood by the movement of our tail so it may be time to change our language a bit. I mean, helping your human is fine, but letting them know, or think they know, what we're thinking is rather extreme. So, watch your backside!
Paws and jaws
We usually have five toes on our front paws and four toes on the back. Some of us though have extra toes on our feet, a condition known as polydactylism. We're the only species to walk on our claws instead of the pads of our feet.
Our jaws are short but strong. When we chomp down on our toys, we can crush the catnip out of them. We can't move our jaws sideways so we get the most out of moving them up and down.
Grooming
No matter what you are doing, no matter what your human is doing, take a break and groom.
You have just knocked your mom's favorite coffee cup (filled with coffee) off the desk. While she's scrambling to wipe it up you can be cleaning and conditioning your fur.
You're not grooming to irritate your human. Quite the opposite. People have to learn to relax, for the sake of all of us, and if they can see how you just stop, amidst noise and chaos, to take a relaxing grooming break, maybe they will get the idea. Of course grooming for them is a little more complicated and involves getting under a stream of hot water (yuck!) but our lesson for them isn't grooming, it's relaxing.
We groom not only to look our best, but also because we don't have sweat glands and it's necessary to apply the moisture that will evaporate and cool us off. We do not need humans to groom us, besides they don't really seem to enjoy giving us baths any more than we enjoy getting them. Even so, they seem to think they can help us get clean. You're in charge, so take care of your fur and everything that lies beneath it.
Do we age differently than humans? (Notice I didn't say grow up)
We age at a different rate than our human companions and because of that, they may seem childish and immature. Of course, that is partially true, but what is also true is they have a lot more time to get as wise as us and still many of them never manage to. Aging is as natural as sleeping--part of the great cycle that we we know as life. The secret is never to worry about how old you are but to know how well you lived every minute of every day. Cat's Truth.
So, aren't we remarkable creatures? Actually most humans find us not only physically remarkable but mysterious and intriguing as well. To us there's no mystery, it's our way of being. Give them a break, and no matter how difficult the task may seem, try to help them see the way.
Jean Sheldon, a native Chicagoan, spent much of her life as a graphic artist. She self-published a book of poems called Jelly Side Down, a book on basic car repair called Glove Box Guide to Keeping it on the Road, and co-authored, with her cat, Xena, The Way of the Cat: Teaching Humans to Be. At fifty-three, she began writing mysteries. Website: http://www.jeansheldon.com
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