Cat Senses
Smell
A cat’s sense of smell, not vision, is the primary resource for identifying individuals and objects in its environment. They have over 200 million odor sensors in their noses compared to 5 million for humans. Their sense of smell is 14 times more sensitive than humans. Because of this, you should be sensitive to scented litter, other animal’s smells on you, or an unfamiliar scent in their environment (a new piece of furniture or a house guest)
Tails
A cat’s tail tells a lot about her mood. When the tail is erect to its full length, it is a greeting, an invitation for rubbing, or a request for food. The tail flick of a seated cat often indicates irritation. Tail wagging can range from small flicks, which might express indecision, or in its most pronounced form, it can be the prelude to a fight between male cats. A tail that is held down with an elevated rump belongs to an aggressive cat that is standing sideways near another cat. A fluffed up, arched tail is seen when the cat stands with its back arched and is torn between aggressive or defensive. A fluffed tail that is positioned straight out or down is seen when the decision moves towards aggression. A tail wrapped against the cat’s body may mean that the cat is contented or for a nervous cat, it is a defensive posture. All of these behaviors can be seen in kittens as they engage in play.
Ears
Cats involved in a standoff will make threatening sounds, but the position of the ears will let you know who is the defender and who is the aggressor. The defender’s ears will lie down flat against the head for protection. The aggressor’s ears will lie flat, but with a twist, so that the tips of the ear can be seen from the front. Confident, curious, cats listen for sounds in front of them using forward pointing ears. A cat that is hunting or playing will also keep its ears forward to collect as much auditory information as possible in order to execute a successful pounce.
Eyes
In dim light conditions, a cat’s pupils expand to allow as much light as possible to enter the eye. In a standoff situation, the defending cats’ pupils will be dilated to provide the cat with wider peripheral vision, an advantage in anticipating an attack. The aggressors’ pupils narrow to give him better depth perception, an advantage in judging where to attack. One of the most wonderful cat eye signals is the slow blink. Blinking is a very powerful communication tool used to signify reassurance. A continuous stare has the opposite effect; it is threatening and unsettling and is used effectively by cats in managing territorial distances.
Taste
A cat’s sense of taste is weak. Humans have 9,000 taste buds while cat’s have 473. They make up for this deficiency with a superior sense of smell. Like humans, cats are responsive to 4 basic tastes; sour, bitter, salt, and sweet. Being strict carnivores, their response to sweet is much weaker than ours. The cat’s most powerful response to food is through smell, not taste.
Tongue
Cats drink by converting their tongues into a spoon. The tip of the tongue is curled backward to create a hollow shape that acts like the bowl of a spoon. Small quantities of liquid are flicked toward the rear of the mouth. The cat swallows after every 4th or 5th lap. The barbs on the tongue soak up the liquid like a sponge. The backward pointing barbs serve to move food and water into the cat’s mouth. They also make it difficult for a cat to remove a piece of string or yarn from its mouth. These barbs are also used for cleaning the cat’s fur, smoothing the fur when it is ruffled, drying the fur when it is wet, panting when the cat is hot, and cooling the cat when it is hot by covering its fur with saliva that then evaporates.
Paws
Cats are right pawed (20%), left pawed (40%) or ambidextrous (40%).
Touch
Cats enjoy contact. They enjoy being touched from infancy on, unless they were not exposed to human contact early on. From birth, touch is the prime source of affection through grooming. Cats will often regress and behave like kittens and start drooling or treading when they are stroked. Each hair has many nerve endings and it evokes a very clear response from the nervous system: heart rate slows, muscle tone drops, and the body relaxes. The more contact you have with a cat when it is young, the more likely it is it will enjoy human contact when it is older.
Whiskers
Whiskers are extensions of the cat’s skin. The whisker is designed to detect even the minutest changes in the environment; tiny movements, air currents, changes in air pressure, temperature, and wind direction. They are imbedded three times as deep as fur, in order to translate the slightest contact to sensory cells at their roots. They assist the cat in navigating at night by acting like radar. They also stimulate an eye blink when touched to protect the eye.
Vision
The location of eyes on the front of the face enables the cat to calculate the exact distance it has to leap to catch its prey. Its pupils dilate at night to let in as much light as possible and form a slit by day. The cat’s visual activity is 10 times less than a human but is compensated for with a retina whose structure provides it with movement detectors to help locate its prey. The tapetum, a reflective layer at the back of the eye, increases the amount of light that passes through the retina and enables the cat to see well in low intensity light. Cats can’t see any better than humans in total darkness.
Hearing
The cat’s outer ear is connected by 27 muscles and can rotate 180 degrees to scan the environment or to direct its attention to a particular sound. Cats can detect higher frequencies than dogs. The direction of the source of the sound can also be calculated by the cat sensing differences in the time of the arrival and the intensity of the sound received by the 2 ears.