| At least one cat has been known to ride a motorcycle.
Motor Cat was a Washington D.C. area feline who loved going for motorcycle rides.
She wore her own custom-made helmet, which was emblazoned with her name. Her owner,
"Catman", says "She wasn't born a motorcat." For the first
year, they never traveled over 35 mph, and Motor Cat's usual spot was on the gas tank,
looking behind the wind screen. There are rug pieces both fore and aft of the Suzuki,
"because it's hard and slippery and I don't think anybody wants to sit on a piece of
metal." He would give Motor Cat nudges to let her know about turns.
"She likes the wind, tries to get me to go faster," said Catman.
"She gets impatient, she'll jump over my head and then land on the wind screen and
look at me like ... " "She likes looking at traffic." Traffic sometimes has problems looking at Motor Cat, though. "I've had about three people run off the road," Catman says. "One older woman, I made a U-turn and came back and she was in the ditch. I asked her what kind of car she had, she asked me what kind of cat I had. She was still more interested in the cat than the ditch." Motor Cat passed away in July 2002 at age 17. For more details see the articles in National Geographic and the Washington Post. |
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A frightened cat can run at speeds of up to 31 mph, slightly faster than a human sprinter.
A cat's normal body temperature is 101.5 degrees F (38.6 C).
A cat cannot see directly under its nose. This is why the cat cannot seem to find
tidbits on the floor.
The cat family split from the other mammals at least 40 million years ago, making them one of the oldest mammalian families.
There are more than 500 million domestic cats, with either 35 different breeds (according to The Cat Fanciers Association, the world's largest cat registry), or 38 breeds (as recognized by The International Cat Association, the second largest registry).
Although it's not quite the largest cat breed, the Ragdoll cat is still a big kitty with perhaps the most laid-back attitude of any other breed. Males weigh 12 to 20 pounds, with females weighing 10 to 15 pounds.
Calico cats are nearly always female.
A cat's heart beats at 110 to 140 beats per minute, twice as fast as a human heart.
Cats lack a true collarbone. Because of this, 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.
To drink, a cat laps liquid from the underside of its tongue, rather than the top.
Cats can see color. Studies have shown 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 about 100 different vocalization sounds. In comparison, dogs have about
10.
A cat will amost never meow at another cat. Cats use this sound for their mothers and their human care-givers.
A cat's brain is more similar to a human's brain than that of a dog.
Both humans and cats have identical regions in the brain responsible for emotion.
Cats must have fat in their diet, because they can't produce it on their own. Never
feed your cat dog food, because cats need five times more protein than dogs do.
Human painkillers such acetaminophen (Tylenol) are toxic to cats. Chocolate is
also poisonous to cats. Beware!
It has been established that people who own pets live longer, have less stress, and have
fewer heart attacks.
A cat can jump five times as high as it is tall.
A cat's ear pivots 180 degrees.
The giraffe, camel, and cat are the only animals that walk by both their left feet, then
both their right feet when walking.
Cats average 16 hours of sleep a day, more than any other mammal.
A cat will spend nearly 30% of its waking hours grooming itself.
The domestic cat is the only cat species able to hold its tail vertically while walking.
All wild cats hold their tails horizontally or tucked between their legs while
walking. A tail held high means happiness; a twitching tail is a warning sign; and a
tucked tail is a sign of insecurity.
In relation to their body size, cats have the largest eyes of any mammal.
Cats can see up to 120 feet away. Their peripheral vision is about 285 degrees.
Young cats can distinuish between two identical sounds that are just 18 inches apart at a distance of up to 60 feet.
Cats only need a sixth the amount of light that humans do to see. However, their daytime vision is only fair compared to that of humans.
A cat's hearing rates as one of the top in the animal kingdom (of course they may choose not to hear some sounds). Cats can hear sounds as high-pitched as 65 kHz; a human's hearing stops at just 20 kHz. A cat can hear a can opener from over a mile away (just kidding about the can opener, but it does seem that way).
95% of cat owners admit they talk to their cats. A quarter of cat owners blow dry their cats after bathing them.
More than 30 percent of American households have a cat as part of the family (Cats & Wildlife 1998). Americans spend more on cat food than on baby food.
A Tufts University study, published in Science Daily, shows that cats exposed to secondhand smoke are more than twice as likely to get feline lymphoma–the most common form of cat cancer, which kills most victims in the first year. "It has long been believed that the major cause of feline lymphoma was feline leukemia virus," says Dr. Antony Moore, a veterinarian at Tufts University, which studied 180 cats treated between 1993 and 2000. "The results of our study clearly indicate that exposure to environmental factors such as second-hand tobacco smoke has devastating consequences for cats because it significantly increases their likelihood of contracting lymphoma." Adjusting for age and other factors, cats exposed to secondhand smoke had more than double the risk of acquiring the disease. In households where they were exposed five years or more, cats had more than triple the risk. In a two-smoker household, the risk went up by a factor of four. In some cases, cats were at higher risk for cancer than humans living in the same home.
The most popular cat names in the U.S.? Take your pick.
- According to "The Cat Lover's Book of Fascinating Facts" by Ed Lucaire:
The most popular names for male cats are Tiger, Tigger, Smokey, Pepper, Max, Maxwell, Simon, Snoopy, Morris, Mickey, Rusty, Rusti, Boots, and Bootsie.
The most popular names for female cats are Samantha, Misty, Patches, Cali, Calico, Muffin, Angel, Angela, Ginger, Tiger, Tigger, Princess, Punkin, and Pumpkin.
- According to Everyday Magazine PetBytes, the 10 most popular names are, in order of popularity, Kitty, Tiger, Smokey, Tigger, Shadow, Samantha, Sam, Max, Misty, and Patches.
- Unknown source:
The most popular names for male cats are: Smokey, Tiger, Max, Charlie, Rocky, Tigger, Sammy, Mickey and Toby.
The most popular names for female cats are: Samantha, Missy, Muffin, Fluffy, Patches, Punkin, Tabitha and Tigger.
Looking for a pet name? Visit the Pet Names Guide.
What do you call a "group" of cats? The term for that is Collective Nouns, and they have little practical value other than for trivia contests or impressing your friends (though you may just be confirming their suspicions that deep down, you really are a dork). I have not found an authoritative answer, but various sources list the collective nouns for kittens as kindle, litter, or pounce. For cats it can be clouder, clowder, cluster, clutter, or glaring. I went to my own cats to get an answer straight from the source. Without hestitation, they informed me that it should be "bundle", and the term applies to kittens and cats. As they said, "A bundle of kittens is a bundle of joy!" I think they're biased in this matter, but I can't argue with them.
