Cat Anatomy Facts

Cool Cat Anatomy Facts brought to you by Clear the Air!

Remember PETCO now carries our Cat Urine Odor Eliminator at all their stores.  Stop in to pick some up!

• Cats can’t taste sweets.
• The cat’s front paw has 5 toes, but the back paws have 4. Some cats are born with as many as 7 front toes and extra back toes (polydactl).
• A cat has 32 muscles in each ear.
• Neutering a cat extends it’s life span by two or three years

• A cat’s tongue consists of small “hooks,” which come in handy when tearing up food
• Cats must have fat in their diet because they can’t produce it on their own.
• Cat’s urine glows under a black light.
• Cats have a third eyelid called a haw and you will probably only see it when kitty isn’t feeling well.
• A cat sees about six times better than a human at night because of a layer of extra reflecting cells which absorb light.
• Cats sleep 16 to 18 hours per day
• Cats are the only animal that walk on their claws, not the pads of their feet.
• Newborn kittens have closed ear canals that don’t begin to open for nine days.
• A kittens eyes are always blue at first
• A cat cannot see directly under its nose.
• It is a common belief that cats are color blind. However, recent studies have shown that cats can see blue, green and red
• Cats with white fur and skin on their ears are very prone to sunburn.
• Siamese kittens are born white.
• A cat’s jaws cannot move sideways.
• Cats have over one hundred vocal sounds, while dogs only have about ten.
• A cat can jump even seven times as high as it is tall.
• A cat is pregnant for about 58-65 days.
• A cat may have three to seven kittens every four months
• Cats step with both left legs, then both right legs when they walk or run. The only other animals to do this are the giraffe and the camel
• If a male cat is both orange and black it is most likely sterile
• The color of the points in Siamese cats is heat related. Cool areas are darker
• Cats lack a true collarbone. Because of this, a cat can generally squeeze their bodies through any space they can get their heads through.
• There are tiny, parasitic worms that can live in a cat’s stomach. These worms cause frequent vomiting.
• A cat’s brain is more similar to a man’s brain than that of a dog.
• A cat has more bones than a human; humans have 206, the cat has 230.
• Cats have 30 vertebrae–5 more than humans have.
• Cat have 500 skeletal muscles (humans have 650).
• A cat can rotate its ears independently 180 degrees, and can turn in the direction of sound 10 times faster than those of the best watchdog
• Cats’ hearing is much more sensitive than humans and dogs.
• Cats’ hearing stops at 65 khz (kilohertz); humans’ hearing stops at 20 khz.
• In relation to their body size, cats have the largest eyes of any mammal.
• A cat’s field of vision is about 185 degrees.
• Blue-eyed, white cats are often deaf.

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