Cats may spend most of the day sleeping, but they are full of surprises. From strange biological quirks and remarkable survival stories to historical connections and behaviors that still puzzle scientists, the feline world is far more fascinating than many people realize. These 25 cat facts reveal just how unusual, clever, and unforgettable cats can be.
Silent Steps, Hidden Footprints
1. Cats “directly register”, which means that as they walk their hind paws step into the same places as their front paws, minimizing sound and visible tracks.
2. The protein responsible for cats’ extra toes is called Sonic Hedgehog (SHH).
3. Jake Perry has owned two successive holders of the record for the oldest domestic cat ever. Creme Puff reached 38 years of age, the equivalent of 165 human years. One third of Perry’s cats have lived past 30.
4. Orlando, a ginger cat, competed against stock-picking professionals and won. The cat chose stocks at random while the professionals used conventional stock-picking methods. At the end of the year the cat had £542.60 profit compared with the professionals’ £176.60 profit.
5. Cats do not like to drink water when food is nearby. Moving your cat’s water away from its food will help prevent kidney disease, a very common condition in older cats.
6. Declawing removes a cat’s toe joint and is illegal in most countries.
7. Cheetahs were nearly wiped out during the last Ice Age; all modern cheetahs descend from a small group of survivors who interbred to keep the species alive, so they are practically genetic clones of one another.
8. Cats and snakes have vertical pupils because these enhance depth perception for hunting at night, while prey animals such as sheep have horizontal pupils to provide a panoramic view of their surroundings for spotting predators.
9. Guinness World Records stopped awarding titles for the fattest cats and other animals to discourage deliberate overfeeding.
10. Unlike many other big cats, snow leopards are not aggressive toward humans; there has never been a verified attack by a snow leopard on a human being.
Bird Extinctions Blamed On Cats
11. Cats are believed to have been primarily responsible for the extinction of 33 bird species.
12. The place where Julius Caesar was assassinated by the Roman senate in 44 BC is now a no-kill shelter for homeless cats.
13. Cats prefer their food to be about 38°C, a temperature similar to a fresh kill, and they commonly reject food served cold because that would indicate the ‘prey’ has been dead a long time and might be toxic or decomposing.
14. A parasite reproduces in a cat’s gut and its offspring are passed in droppings where rats can eat them; those offspring then change the rats’ behavior, making them less fearful and even sexually aroused by cats so the parasite can return to the cat’s gut.
15. A homeless cat slipped into a lynx enclosure at a Leningrad zoo, and the two animals became best friends.
16. James Bowen, a homeless heroin addict, got clean with the help of a stray cat named Bob whom he found injured in 2007. James wrote a best-selling book, and in 2016 a movie was released starring Bob as himself.
17. H. P. Lovecraft wrote a full essay arguing that cats were better than dogs.
18. After hearing a purring noise from his parked truck, Errand Frazier cut the truck open and found a stray kitten lodged in the frame. He carefully drove to a Humane Society, where the cat was safely rescued. The Society set up a fund to repair his truck, with extra money to help other animals.
19. No species of cat can both purr and roar.
20. Toxoplasma gondii is a brain parasite transmitted through cat feces that slows rats and causes them to be attracted to cats. This parasite can be transmitted to humans and can cause humans to excessively care for cats. Also, infected female humans and infected female rats are more likely to find infected males attractive.
Nursing Home Death Predictor
21. Oscar the Cat predicted with such accuracy when people in his nursing home were about to die that staff would call relatives.
22. Jeremy Hammond, the world’s most wanted hacker, was hacked and arrested because his password was his cat’s name plus ‘123’.
23. A cat called Masha saved a baby’s life. The long-haired red tabby found an abandoned baby in a box in the snow, climbed into the box to keep the baby warm, and meowed to attract a passerby’s attention. The abandoned baby was rescued unharmed.
24. Sailors considered black cats good luck and kept them as “ship’s cats” in hopes of a safe voyage. Wives of fishermen also kept a black cat at home, believing the cat would allow their husbands to return safely.
25. A software developer outsourced his work to China, paying someone else less than one-fifth of his six-figure salary to do his job. He used the free time mostly to surf the web and watch cat videos.
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