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Imprisoned by Henry VIII in the Tower of London, Sir Henry Wyatt, close to starvation, was saved by a cat who showed up with a pidgeon in its mouth for him to dine on.
The heaviest domestic cat on record was a neutered male tabby named Himmy, weighing in at 46 lb. 15 ½ oz. (neck 15 in., waist 33 in., length 38 in.)
The smallest domestic cat on record was a male blue point Himalayan-Persian cat named Tinker Toy, is just 2 3/4 in. tall and 7 1/2 in. long.
People who like cats are called
ailurophiles. This word comes from the ancient Greek language. The oldest feline mother Kitty, owned by George Johnstone of England produced in May 1987, two kittens at age 30. She died just short of her 32nd birthday, having given birth to a known total of 218 kittens during her lifetime.
The most prolific cat was a tabby named Dusty of Bonham, she lived in Texas, and produced 420 kittens during her life time. The first formal cat show was held in England in 1871; the first in America was in 1895.
It has been scientifically proven that stroking a cat can lower one's blood pressure.
Cats respond most readily to names that end in an "ee" sound. The domestic cat is the only species able to hold its tail vertically while walking. Wild cats hold their tail horizontally, or tucked between their legs while walking.
Cats are said to see color. Studies have been able to prove 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.
To drink, a cat laps liquid from the underside of its tongue, rather than the top.
Female cats can reach adulthood in as little as five months, but male cats can take nine months to a year to reach adulthood. Most breeds of cats have reached their full growth by two years. Whiskers tell a cat whether the space they are entering is big enough for it.
The bottom two rows of whiskers on a cat can move independently of the top two rows.
Cats aren't hunters by nature - their mothers teach them to hunt. A cat's sense of smell is 14 times stronger than a human's. Besides their noses, cats can smell with something called the "Jacobson's organ", located in the upper surface of their mouths. This is what cats are using when they scrunch up their eyes and open their mouths after sniffing something intently. Cats have 32 muscles in each ear.
The largest litter of kittens on record is 19, from a Burmese/Siamese cat in 1970.
Cats can purr to express pain or fear in addition to expressing pleasure. Female cats often purr when they are in labor, as well as when they are nursing their kittens.
Cats have about 100 different vocalisation sounds. In comparison, dogs have about 10.
Cats only sweat from the pads of their paws. Ever notice how wet the examination room table gets when you take your cat to the vet? Cats have five toes on each front paw, but only four toes on each back paw.
Cats have true fur, in that they have both an undercoat and an outer coat.
Contrary to popular belief, the cat is a social animal. A pet cat will respond and answer to speech, and seems to enjoy human companionship. If left to her own devices, a female cat may have three to seven kittens every four months. This is why population control using neutering and spaying is so important.
Kittens are born with both eyes and ears closed. When the eyes open, they are always blue at first. They change color over a period of months to the final eye color.
When well treated, a cat can live twenty or more years. A cat cannot see directly under its nose. This is why the cat cannot seem to find tidbits on the floor.
The gene in cats that causes the orange coat color is sexed linked, and is on the X sex chromosome. This gene may display orange or black. Thus, as female cat with two X chromosomes may have orange and black colors in its coat. A male, with only one X chromosome, can have only orange or black, not both.
If a male cat is both orange and black it is (besides being extremely rare) sterile. To have both the orange and the black coat colors, the male cat must have all or part of both female X chromosomes. This unusual sex chromosome combination will render the male cat sterile. Cats have AB blood groups just like humans. Siamese coat color and crossed eyes may be caused by the same gene. The color of the points in Siamese cats is heat related. Cool areas are darker.
Siamese kittens are born white because of the heat inside the mother's uterus before birth. This heat keeps the kittens' hair from darkening on the points.
Though rare, cats can contract canine heartworms. People who are allergic to cats are actually allergic to cat saliva or to cat dander. If the resident cat is bathed regularly the allergic people tolerate it better.
Studies now show that the allergen in cats is related to their scent glands.
Cats have scent glands on their faces and at the base of their tails. Entire male cats generate the most scent. If this secretion from the scent glands is the allergen, allergic people should tolerate spayed female cats the best.
Cats do not think that they are little people. They think that we are big cats. This influences their behavior in many ways. Cats are subject to gum disease and to dental caries. They should have their teeth cleaned by the vet or the cat dentist once a year. Cats, especially older cats, do get cancer. Many times this disease can be treated successfully.
Most cats have no eyelashes.
Many cats cannot properly digest cow's milk. Milk and milk products give them diarrhea.
Cats lack a true collarbone. Because of this lack, 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.
Cats with white fur and skin on their ears are very prone to sunburn. Frequent sunburns can lead to skin cancer. Many white cats need surgery to remove all or part of a cancerous ear. Preventive measures include sunscreen, or better, keeping the cat indoors. Cats can get tapeworms from eating fleas. These worms live inside the cat forever, or until they are removed with medication.They reproduce by shedding a link from the end of their long bodies. This link crawls out the cat's anus, and sheds hundreds of eggs. These eggs are ingested by flea larvae, and the cycles continues. Humans may get these tapeworms too, but only if they eat infected fleas. Cats with tapeworms should be dewormed by a veterinarian.
Cats can get tapeworms from eating mice. If your cat catches a mouse it is best to take the prize away from it.
There are tiny, parasitic worms that can live in a cat's stomach. These worms cause frequent vomiting.
Many people fear catching a protozoan disease, Toxoplasmosis, from cats. This disease can cause illness in the human, but more seriously, can cause birth defects in the unborn. Toxoplasmosis is a common disease, sometimes spread through the feces of cats. It is caused most often from eating raw or rare beef.
Pregnant women and people with a depressed immune system should not touch the cat litter box. Other than that, there is no reason that these people have to avoid cats.
Cats have a full inner-eyelid, or nictitating membrane. This inner-eyelid serves to help protect the eyes from dryness and damage. When the cat is ill, the inner-eyelid will frequently close partially, making it visible to the observer.
You can tell a cat's mood by looking into its eyes. A frightened or excited cat will have large, round pupils. An angry cat will have narrow pupils. The pupil size is related as much to the cat's emotions as to the degree of light.
A cat is pregnant for about 58-65 days. This is roughly two months. Cats respond better to women than men. One reason this might be is that women have higher pitched voices which reminds cats of a mother cat calling her kittens.
White paws on cats are referred to as gloves, but they are often called boots.
The normal body temperature of a cat is 102 degrees. White cats with blue eyes are often born deaf. The reason for this is because the gene that gives them the white coat is connected to deafness.
Mother cats are properly referred to as Dams, and a female cat raised solely for breeding is called a Queen. The father cat is properly called the Sire.
The largest breed of domestic cat is the Ragdoll. Scientific studies have compared and examined both a cat's brain and a dog's brain. The results established that the cat's brain is more similar to a humans than that of a dog.
Almost 10% of a cat's bones is in its tail. The cat's body contains 245 bones, but as they age some of the bones fuse together and the number of bones decreases.
Cats have only thirty teeth. Kittens have baby teeth which are replaced by permanent fangs at around seven months of age. A cats hearing is incredibly sharp. They can recognize their owners footsteps from hundreds of feet away.
The roughness of a cat's tongue has a very useful purpose. It gives the cat an extremely effective grooming tool with which to clean their fur and paws.
The cat is one of nature's cleanest animals. Cats spend around 30% of their time grooming themselves.
Because cats have an amazing sense of balance they rarely become ill when travelling by car.
Though cats have an incredible sense of hearing, and it takes a kitten about two weeks to begin to hear well.
Kitten's eyes usually open between 7 to 10 days after birth, but it occasionally they open within 2 or 3 days. The average life expectancy of a cat is between 15 to 18 years although the oldest cat on record lived to be 36 years old. However, the oldest reliably recorded cat was a female tabby named Ma, who lived to the age of 34.
Cats should not be fed raw egg whites because they contain an enzyme that breaks down the vitamin biotin, which is essential to cat health. The oldest known fossilized record that has a similarity to today's cats has been aged at 12 million years old.
Fish isn't a "natural" food for cats. Cat origins are in the desert where rodents, birds, and insects are found, not fish. One theory that explains why cats today eat fish is that during World War II, meat was scarce, expensive, carefully rationed. Cat food manufacturers had to find a cheap source of protein, so they started to use fish and fish by-products in cat food. Except for one cat breed in India, in the wild, cats won't hunt for fish.
The smallest species of cat is native to Africa: the Black-Footed Cat (Felis Nigripes). Its top weight is 5.5 pounds which is considerably smaller than the average housecat.
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