The cat is a carnivorous mammal of the family of “the felidae”. The word cat comes from low-Latin cattus (wildcat). The domesticate cats Felis catus is particularly close to the European wildcat Felis silvestris and the African wildcat (“gloved” cat) Felis libyca, which form certainly all three one.

Biology

Because of a more diversified food and less rich in proteins, the intestines of the domesticate cat are longer than among its wild ancestors. With a reduction in its size, it is the most notable adaptation to its new way of life

Senses

The twilight Predatory senses (to lay down and raise sun) in the beginning, the cat have very developed senses. It perceives its universe in a way different from ours and one even lent supernatural capacities to him. There exists thus many legends of cats having predicted earthquakes or other catastrophes. The most probable explanation is that its ear is ready to perceive inaudible vibrations for the human ones.

Hearing

Its hearing is particularly sensitive in the high frequencies: it perceives ultrasounds up to 30 000 Hz whereas the human ear is limited to 20 000 Hz. Its house in horn can be directed thanks to twenty-seven muscles, which enables him to swivel each ear independently to locate with precision the source of a noise and its distance.

The sight

The sight is its paramount direction. Contrary to a spread idea, it is unable to see in the complete black. It is however much more powerful than us in the half-light. Its field of vision is also wider than that of the Man : 187° against 125°, which remains however far from the absolute record of the animal world. The light intensity influences the shape of the pupil : lengthened in narrow slit in full light, it dilates in a perfectly round circle with the half-light. The night, the aspect shining of the eyes is due to a layer of cells of the retina which acts like a mirror and returns the perceived light, which makes it pass one second time in the retina and thus multiplies by two its vision in the darkness.

On the other hand, the cat does not perceive the colours in the same way nor even the movements that us : it thinks (because that is still discussed) that it does not perceive the red colour and that, generally, it distinguishes the details very badly. Its vision is granules on the fixed images whereas an object moving appears to him more clearly (for example a prey moving).

The sense of smell

Its sense of smell is forty times more powerful than that of human and has a great importance in the social life of cat-like to delimit its territory. In addition, it is its developed sense of smell which enables him to detect damaged and poisoned food. It has twenty million olfactive terminals, against five million at the man.

The touch

Its direction of the touch is also well developed. Its vibrates ("moustache") indicates the proximity of obstacles to him, even in the total darkness, while enabling him to detect the variations of pressure of the air. The bearings furnishing its legs are very sensitive to the vibrations and its skin is constellated with extremely sensitive tactile cells.

Other characteristics of the cat

the body of Jacobson(1) is a true sixth direction. Like the dog or the horse, the cat is able to taste the odours using its vomero-nasal body. It rolls up, its chops to make possible the odours to go up by two small conduits located behind the incisors to two bags filled with fluid in the nasal cavities charged to concentrate the odours. Its vestibular body is also particularly developed, conferring a direction of remarkable balance to him. This explains the astonishing faculty which have the cats to be turned over quickly to fall down on their legs at the time of a fall.

It can also jump to a height five times higher than its size. In the race, its  velocity is 40 km/h and it takes 9 seconds to make 100 m, but it is not a long-distance runner and it is tired rather quickly.

Reproduction, Gestation, Give birth

The cats can reproduce as from 9 months. The female is in heat twice per annum, generally in spring and the autumn. In period of heat of the she-cats, the males mark their territory while urinating. They often fight with other males, they are thinned down and neglected it. When they are capable to still couple with the female, is necessary it that it accepts them. At the time of the coupling, the male goes up on the back of the female and the skin of the neck bites to him the time of the coupling. The female tends to groan and to be irritated, either because of the bite of the male at the base of its neck, or because the time of coupling becomes long or because it feels trapped, and cannot move besides any more (it tries to be released into corrosive and scratching the male).

Gestation lasts approximately 60 days and a range counts on average from 3 to 4 kittens. At 3 weeks, the udders of the female grow bigger and turn pink. At 4 weeks, its belly starts to inflate and its appetite will be growing until the low setting of the kittens. During gestation, the she-cat will take care not to do too much, it will be more cuddlesome and flexible, seeking affection unceasingly. At 7 weeks, it will start to seek a calm and suitable place to be confined. Inside, the she-cat often chooses a wall cupboard with linen, a paperboard... When the moment came for the low setting, it be-with-statement between 61 and 70 days after coupling, the she-cat is agitated, and it is important that its Master is close to it to support it. After its contractions, the she-cat give birth to its first kitten (approximately in the 20 minutes), then according to case's, either the others will follow quickly, or they will spend several hours to leave (the time of low setting can go up to 12 midnight). The kittens arrive in a pocket, the she-cat immediately washes its small with blows of language to stimulate their first inspiration. Then, it eats the placenta, and cuts the umbilical cord. The kitten seeks then to suck at one’s mother breast.

The kitten is born "blind" (closed eyes) and weighs from 80 to 100 grams; when it opens the eyes, they are of blue colour until the final change (around 2 months) for the majority of the cats except Korat where they will pass from amber to the green which will be cleared up and will be stabilized towards 2 or 3 years. The weaning of the cats lasts 2 months, and during all this period, the mother will learn the kittens how to wash, nourish, drive out, etc. Once again Korat is distinguished because the father takes part in the hearth and the education of the kittens.

For more information on procreation of Korat : click here.

Sleep

The cat sleeps a lot, on average of 15 to 16 hours per day. There remains thus waked up approximately 6 to 9 hours, of which a part the night to drive out. One frequently uses it within the framework of experiments on the cycles of the sleep.

Food and drink

The cat is primarily carnivorous (small mammals and birds, even of the insects as the flies) even if it sometimes happens to him to eat plants, seems it primarily for the vomitory effect which they have on him, effect which enables him to evacuate the hairs accumulated in its stomach at the time its long and frequent meetings of toilet. It will never disavow them its natural. However, it is advisable not to too often give him meat, in order to avoid the absorption of parasites which cooking neutralizes. The meat makes it possible nevertheless the cat to assimilate “taurine”, molecule produced by the cat but in insufficient quantity. The deficiency in “taurine” involves sight trouble, cardiac, reproduction in the female and an immunizing deficit. The “taurine” is also added in certain industrial products (milk for cat...)

The bones are also to avoid : by crunching them, the cats can pierce the palate with projecting pieces. Lastly, certain specimens appreciate food containing milk, such as biscuits and the madeleine ; to give with precaution, since the cat does not brush the teeth. Certain types of croquettes are not recommended for the good health of the cat because they can support the renal calculi. It is thus necessary to be vigilant as for the mark and not to hesitate to put the price (for an optimal quality) for intestinal the correct operation of your animal.

The domestic cat, if it were accustomed there young person, deviates its natural diet and eats also fruits and vegetables (tomatoes, potatoes, endives, etc.) or of the dishes cooked like the pastes or the cakes and tarts.

For drink, it is advisable to let elutriate the water of the tap several hours to let it lose its chlorine, which rejects the sense of smell of the animal, and which it is at the ambient temperature. The cats also appreciate milk, but certain individuals present an intolerance at lactose.

For more information on the food of the cat, click here.

Its rejections

The cats, in nature, choose a movable ground corner to make their nature's needs there. They then cover them with ground, by scraping the latter with their front legs. If sedentary, it change only seldom place, unless this one is saturated. The cats "of interior" make their needs in a litter, which it is advisable to maintain daily. A bottom of newsprint covered with a fine layer of litter will be enough for the young animals; with the ageing of the animal, the volume of urine grows, it is thus important to hold of it account in the composition and the renewal of the litter. It is also necessary to avoid the closed vats, which have as a disadvantage of concentrating the ammonia exit of the urine, and thus reject the cat. Your companion will not fail to inaugurate his vat recently changed, and will thank you.

Ethology

The cat is classified among the territorial animals. That means that the safeguarding of its place of life is the principal engine of its interactions with the other individuals. When several cats divide the same apartment, it is not rare to see them choosing each one its clean "way" to go from a place to another; they divide their territory thus.

In a wild state, it has a night twilight activity, helped by its very sensitive eyes.

History

Until 2001, one thought that the cats had been domesticated by the Egyptians during antiquity, but the discovery of the remainders of a cat at the sides of those of human in a burial in Cyprus pushes back the beginning of this relation with front thousand-year-old VII. J.-C. (-7 000). The cohabitation of the cats and the men probably arrived with the beginning of agriculture : the storage of the grain attracted the mice and the rats, which attracted the cats, their natural predator.

The Egyptians of Antiquity deified the cat under the features of the protective goddess Bastet. One also found very many mummies of cats which show at which point the Egyptians venerated them.

On the other hand, ancient Greece a long time only knows “mustelides”, pipe cleaner and weasel. Later, the cat will be imported from Egypt and will assume a place near the Greeks, initially under the name of aileron ("balance-tail"), then starting from II century before our era, katoikidios ("domestic weasel"). The Romans, on the other hand, dedicated a passion to the cat : initially held with the easy classes, the use to have a cat was spread in all the empire and all the layers of the population, ensuring the dispersion of the animal in all Europe.

On the other hand, it was wicked in Europe during a part of the Middle Ages, and knew return in thanks only to the favour of the romanticism (the cat is the romantic par excellence, mysterious and independent animal).

For more information on the origin of the cat, click here to go on the page concerning its origin.

An everyday life with a cat

the behaviour of the domestic cats can appear capricious, and as in all the animals, each individual has a behaviour and a character who is clean for him. The cats in general tend to affirm their independence with respect to the other occupants of a place but they can be affectionate, it is simply them which choose the moment... You thought of having a cat... what a error! In fact you live at his place !

Symbolic system

In the Western symbolic system, the cat is associated to the bad luck and the evil, all the more when it is black, with the slyness and femininity. It is the animal of the devil and the witches. One allots also nine lives to him. The origin of this symbolic system lies in the fact that this animal is a twilight predator of a flexible felinity, which can be surprising of promptness.

Proverbs concerning the cat

With good cat, good rat : a good hunter can find an adversary with its measurement.

The night, all the cats are grey : in the darkness, the details are based and one can confuse objects however extremely different.

When the cat sleeps (is not there), the mice dance : when the capacity in place is not represented, those which it oppresses can act freely.

One should not awake the cat which sleeps : it is necessary to avoid reactivating a source of danger when it was putting into sleep of itself.

Scalded cat fears cold water : a bad experiment can make fear to try others of them, even if they are inoffensive.

It is difficult to catch a black cat in a dark part, especially when it is not there (Chinese proverb).

Literature

The cat is a friend for writers, Colette (the She-cat), Charles Baudelaire, Edgar Allan Poe (the black Cat), Marcel Aymé (tales of the perched cat) wrote on him. He is the central hero of the “botté” Cat of Charles Perrault; he is Tibert in the Romance of  the Fox

Animated drawings

The cat is a frequent character in the animated drawings : Titi and Pussycat, Tom & Jerry, Speedy Gonzalez -, Itchy and Scratchy (animated drawing included in Simpson), Felix the cat, the Kingdom of the Cats of Hiroyuki Morita (animates) put it in scene.

(1) the body vomero-nasal, or body of Jacobson, discovered in 1813 by Danish Ludwig Jacobson, is a body located under the interior surface of the nose and specialized in the detection of the pheromones. It is present in the mammals like in the reptiles. At the man, this body is atrophied and plays more one part also dominating only for other species.

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