Strange Facts You Should Know About Cats!!!

Cats are lovely,and they are really a good partner for spending free time. You can smile watching them performing different actions in its own way. I love cats but I don’t have patience to handle tidiness in home with it.Well,most of you must be having a cat at their home.

Yeah,its a fun. But do you have a complete knowledge of your cat’s lifestyle? If no,then this one is for you. I am giving you some not so well known facts about cats.Have an eye and write your comments if you like my work.

• A cat lover is called an Ailurophilia (Greek: cat+lover).
• A group of cats is called a “clowder.”
• Female cats tend to be right pawed, while male cats are more often left pawed. Interestingly, while 90% of humans are right handed, the remaining 10% of lefties also tend to be male.
• A cat can’t climb head first down a tree because every claw on a cat’s paw points the same way. To get down from a tree, a cat must back down.
• Cats make about 100 different sounds. Dogs make only about 10.
• A cat’s brain is biologically more similar to a human brain than it is to a dog’s. Both humans and cats have identical regions in their brains that are responsible for emotions.
• There are more than 500 million domestic cats in the world, with approximately 40 recognized breeds.
• Approximately 24 cat skins can make a coat.
• A cat can jump up to five times its own height in a single bound.
• Some cats have survived falls of over 65 feet (20 meters), due largely to their “righting reflex.” The eyes and balance organs in the inner ear tell it where it is in space so the cat can land on its feet. Even cats without a tail have this ability.
• A cat rubs against people not only to be affectionate but also to mark out its territory with scent glands around its face. The tail area and paws also carry the cat’s scent.
• Researchers are unsure exactly how a cat purrs. Most veterinarians believe that a cat purrs by vibrating vocal folds deep in the throat. To do this, a muscle in the larynx opens and closes the air passage about 25 times per second.
• When a family cat died in ancient Egypt, family members would mourn by shaving off their eyebrows. They also held elaborate funerals during which they drank wine and beat their breasts. The cat was embalmed with a sculpted wooden mask and the tiny mummy was placed in the family tomb or in a pet cemetery with tiny mummies of mice.
• In 1888, more than 300,000 mummified cats were found an Egyptian cemetery. They were stripped of their wrappings and carted off to be used by farmers in England and the U.S. for fertilizer.
• Most cats give birth to a litter of between one and nine kittens. The largest known litter ever produced was 19 kittens, of which 15 survived.
•  In the original Italian version of Cinderella, the benevolent fairy godmother figure was a cat.
•  In Holland’s embassy in Moscow, Russia, the staff noticed that the two Siamese cats kept meowing and clawing at the walls of the building. Their owners finally investigated, thinking they would find mice. Instead, they discovered microphones hidden by Russian spies. The cats heard the microphones when they turned on.
• A cat’s jaw can’t move sideways, so a cat can’t chew large chunks of food.
• A cat’s back is extremely flexible because it has up to 53 loosely fitting vertebrae. Humans only have 34.
• Approximately 1/3 of cat owners think their pets are able to read their minds.
• The little tufts of hair in a cat’s ear that help keep out dirt direct sounds into the ear, and insulate the ears are called “ear furnishings.”
• The ability of a cat to find its way home is called “psi-traveling.” Experts think cats either use the angle of the sunlight to find their way or that cats have magnetized cells in their brains that act as compasses.
• All cats have claws, and all except the cheetah sheath them when at rest.
• Two members of the cat family are distinct from all others: the clouded leopard and the cheetah. The clouded leopard does not roar like other big cats, nor does it groom or rest like small cats. The cheetah is unique because it is a running cat; all others are leaping cats. They are leaping cats because they slowly stalk their prey and then leap on it.
• A cat usually has about 12 whiskers on each side of its face.
• A cat’s eyesight is both better and worse than humans. It is better because cats can see in much dimmer light and they have a wider peripheral view. It’s worse because they don’t see color as well as humans do. Scientists believe grass appears red to cats.
• A cat’s hearing is better than a dog’s. And a cat can hear high-frequency sounds up to two octaves higher than a human.
• A cat can travel at a top speed of approximately 31 mph (49 km) over a short distance.
• Smuggling a cat out of ancient Egypt was punishable by death. Phoenician traders eventually succeeded in smuggling felines, which they sold to rich people in Athens and other important cities.
• The earliest ancestor of the modern cat lived about 30 million years ago. Scientists called it theProailurus, which means “first cat” in Greek. The group of animals that pet cats belong to emerged around 12 million years ago.
• The biggest wildcat today is the Siberian Tiger. It can be more than 12 feet (3.6 m) long (about the size of a small car) and weigh up to 700 pounds (317 kg).
• The smallest wildcat today is the Black-footed cat. The females are less than 20 inches (50 cm) long and can weigh as little as 2.5 lbs (1.2 kg) .
• Every year, nearly four million cats are eaten in Asia.
•  On average, cats spend 2/3 of every day sleeping. That means a nine-year-old cat has been awake for only three years of its life.
• Unlike dogs, cats do not have a sweet tooth. Scientists believe this is due to a mutation in a key taste receptor.
• The oldest cat to give birth was Kitty who, at the age of 30, gave birth to two kittens. During her life, she gave birth to 218 kittens.c
• The most traveled cat is Hamlet, who escaped from his carrier while on a flight. He hid for seven weeks behind a pane. By the time he was discovered, he had traveled nearly 373,000 miles (600,000 km).
• The most expensive cat was an Asian Leopard cat (ALC)-Domestic Shorthair (DSH) hybrid named Zeus. Zeus, who is 90% ALC and 10% DSH, has an asking price of £100,000 ($154,000).
• The cat who holds the record for the longest non-fatal fall is Andy. He fell from the 16th floor of an apartment building (about 200 ft/.06 km) and survived.
• The richest cat is Blackie who was left £15 million by his owner, Ben Rea.
• The claws on the cat’s back paws aren’t as sharp as the claws on the front paws because the claws in the back don’t retract and, consequently, become worn.
• There are up to 60 million feral cats in the United States alone.