Interesting Facts about Cats I

     Cats! every girl and boy like cats. So what makes them so interesting and so lovable?  Why do people love them so much?  So it is better to know some facts about cats.

     Cat family includes more than 50 species which greatly differ in size, from small domestic cat to the magnificent Siberian tiger which may be 10 feet long and weigh over 200kgs. They live in various habitats that vary from tropical jungles to the Arctic. So one or more of these wild species are found in every country of the world. And these cats share many characteristic features, so their behaviors are somewhat alike to what we find in our domestic cats.

     All cats, wild or domestic are mammals, which give birth to the young and feed them with milk from their own bodies for some time.  And cats belong to the group of carnivore/ flesh eating. But our domestic cats might eat anything and we all know that they prefer flesh. Cats’ eyes are specially suited for seeing in dim light so that they can hunt effectively at nights or at dusk and dawn by adopting their eyes to very little light by enlarging the pupil (opening). By doing so they can gather much more light than we humans do and thus they can see
more. This adaptation leads cats’ to be good hunters at dark. When light gets stronger the pupil decreases in size until it is the black slit that we see when cats face strong sun light. The eyes of a cat glow in the dark because the black surface of the eye is coated with tiny particles call guanine. When light strikes these particles they amplify and brighten the dim picture focused on the retina.

     Another interesting fact about cats is that they can jump well as much as four times their own length and have delicate sense of balance and grate natural grace.  Cats place their hind feet exactly in the track of their front paws, which test the path and this makes them both sure footed and silent as they stalk their pray. And cats have powerful muscles which lie under the skin which are used in leaping, running and in twisting to a good landing position when they fall. And it gives a very flexible body and its movements whether fast or slow are always graceful. Cats’ tail is a help in balancing and speeding up the twisting action as a cat jumps in mid air.

     Other than these two facts the noise cats’ make vary. When small cats purr and large ones roar; leopards make an abrupt coughing noise. And Siamese and some wild cats have penetrating cries. Cats’ have rough tongues which are very useful for them to scrap meat from bone or plate and can wash and brash its coat. Soft pads under the cat’s paw are both sensitive “feelers” and cushions of fat which being poor heat conductors help to protect them from the cold. And all cats except cheetah have claws that can be extended or retracted. The most Interesting fact about cats is that they have the longest and sharpest teeth of all carnivores. These are some few fact that cats family share to make them so interesting,  and in my next post I'll tell you about domestics cats and their interesting facts.