It’s impossible not hold a precious little kitty and not grin. But cats aren’t just cute. They’re also fascinating. It’s possible that there would be even more cat lovers if people were more educated about cats. So here are 10 more fascinating feline facts.
1. You know all those cartoons of cats catching and eating live/raw fish, gulping them down and pulling out a perfectly clean fish skeleton? Well, it turns out that this is a no-no. Raw fish, even if it’s sushi-grade stuff that we humans can eat, can cause gastrointestinal issues in cats and possibly even neurological damage.
2. YouTube has one of the oldest cat videos ever recorded. It’s a recording of two cats boxing, and it dates all the way back to 1894!
3. The CIA tried to recruit a cat into its network of spies in the 1960s. They surgically implanted a radio transmitter and microphone in her head. While she survived the procedure, she never got to do any real spy work, as she was struck by a taxi during her first assignment.
4. In the Harry Potter books, a stone pulled from the stomach of a goat is call a “bezoar.” But a bezoar is actually a hairball.
5. Male cats tend to be southpaws, while female cats are usually right-handed.
6. Dogs are able to vocalize about 10 different sounds. Cats, on the other hand, have over 100 different vocalizations at their disposal.
7. If you compare their different brains, cats are closer to humans than they are to dogs. That’s right: Feline brains are 90 percent similar to your own.
8. Humans and felines possess almost identical areas of the brain that govern emotion.
9. Just as humans do, cats and dogs have a cerebral cortex. That’s the section of the brain that regulates the way we process cognitive data. Canine cerebral cortex’s have 160 million neurons. Feline cerebral cortex’s have nearly twice as many neurons—300 million.
10. Cats’ long-term memory, particularly when they learn something by experiencing it, is longer than that of dogs.
Source: BuzzFeed
