Mary Allen
Cats perceive every breath of air, hear the slightest rustling and find their way in the dark. Your cat’s senses are so fascinating.
Hearing
Our kitties have excellent hearing. With a frequency range of 60 kHz, they not only surpass us humans but also dogs.
Above all, cats can perceive medium and high frequencies very well and can therefore hear every mouse squeaking or rustling in the bushes, no matter how quiet. Even pinpointing the source of the noise is possible without even being able to see it.
This is assisted by numerous muscles in the cat’s horn-shaped ears, allowing each ear to rotate independently in almost any direction. In this way, the velvet paws get a detailed, three-dimensional picture of their surroundings, even in the dark.
New, loud noises can therefore put your cat under enormous stress. For example, if a baby comes into the house, the world of the cat changes completely. So get your pet used to the new situation in advance.
Balance
Another extra is hidden in your cat’s inner ear: the vestibular apparatus. He is responsible for balance and is particularly well trained in climbing and jumping. It reliably conveys to the cats in all situations what is up and what is down.
Due to the special physique of the kitties, such as their tail, they manage to keep their balance on every tightrope walk and land safely on their four paws after a jump or fall.
You should definitely eliminate these dangers for cats in the household.
Sight
In bright light, the cat’s pupil narrows to a narrow slit. She can only see really clearly at a distance of between two and six meters. And the color vision is not well developed either. Cats perceive mainly blue and green tones. Red cannot be distinguished from yellow.
Cats develop their real strengths of vision in the dark. Now the pupil widens and takes up up to 90 percent of the eye area. This allows a particularly large amount of light to fall on the retina.
Another extra: the “tapetum lucidum”, a reflective layer behind the retina. It reflects the incident light and in this way allows it to pass through the retina a second time. This allows cats to see well even in what appears to be absolute darkness.
The field of vision of cats is also larger than that of humans: Due to the position of the eyes in the face, the cat can see 120 degrees spatially and estimate distances well in this area. Outside of this angle, it can see an additional 80 degrees to either side in two dimensions, and notice the movement of prey or enemies.
Sense of smell
Anyone who can hear and see so well is no longer dependent on their sense of smell. That’s why cats use their small noses primarily to communicate with other cats.
In combination with the so-called Jacob’s organ, the opening of which is located on the cat’s palate, the animals can evaluate chemical substances and thus find out the gender or the hormone status of other conspecifics. It is particularly exciting that they can even use it to sniff out pregnancy in their human.
Although cats do not have good noses, they still smell three times better than humans and use smelling to check their food.
sense of taste
The sense of taste is mainly used to recognize the animal amino acids in meat. The velvet paws can distinguish between salty, bitter, and sour, but they do not taste sweet.
With a total of around 9,000 taste buds, humans have an advantage over cats with almost 500 taste buds.
Touch
Whiskers give cats a unique sense of touch. The long, stiff whiskers are not only found around the mouth but also over the eyes, on the chin, and on the back of the front legs.
They are anchored particularly deeply in the skin and have numerous nerves at the hair roots. Even the smallest touch stimuli are thus perceived even in complete darkness. Even a whirl of air can warn cats of danger or help them find their way around and hunt.
Sense of direction
The cats have not yet told us a secret of their impressive senses: There are numerous theories about the excellent sense of direction of the velvet paws, none of which has been proven so far.
Do they use the earth’s magnetic field, the position of the sun, or their audiovisual perception and the interplay of what they see and hear to orient themselves? So far it remains a mystery how the cats always find the right way home over long distances.
We wish you and your cat all the best!