50 Shades of Cattitude

Alka Paul
Cats and their captivating ways! There’s a lot more to your feline friend than meets the eye. You may love this mystical creature of yours without being aware of how cool this species is.
Here is a list of 50 amusing facts about cats who’ll leave you awestruck!
1. The oldest cat called Creme Puff was born on 3rd August 1967 and lived up to 38 years, 3 days.
 
2. Cats are the only mammals who are unable to taste sweetness.
 
3. The claws of your cat curve downwards, not allowing her to climb down trees head-first. She has to back down the trunk instead.
 
4. Cats have 230 bones as compared to humans who have only 206.
 
5. Your cat stares at you with her mouth open because she has an extra organ that allows her to taste scents in the air.
 
6. Cats have whiskers on their front legs too.
 
7. Female cats are more likely to be right-pawed, while male cats are left-pawed.
 
8. Cats have twice the amount of neurons in their cerebral cortex as compared to dogs.
 
9. Cats are most active at dawn and dusk, which means they are crepuscular.
 
10. Cats are known to spend up to a third of their waking hours grooming.
 
11. Female cats can get pregnant at the age of four months.
 
12. Cats have close to hundred different vocalizations as compared to dogs who only have ten.
 
13. Cats feel threatened when you make direct eye contact with them.
 
14. A cat who is hissing during a fight is the most vulnerable one.
 
15. When a cat wags her tail, she is warning you that you are getting on her nerves, unlike dogs who wag their tails when they are happy.
 
16. Whiskers indicate a cat’s mood. When a cat is hunting, she will put her whiskers forward. But when she is scared, she will put them back.
 
17. Cats love to sleep in hiding places with peep holes, such as a laundry basket.
 
18. Cats often attack human ankles when they are bored.
 
19. Cats dislike citrus scents.
 
20. Cats enjoy licking their owners freshly washed hair.
 
21. A green coloured cat was born in Denmark in 1995. It is believed that high levels of copper in the water pipes may have given his fur this Verdigris shade.
 
22. In 2011, Maria Assunta left her cat Tomasso with $13 million when she died.
 
23. Abraham Lincoln was a cat lover and he had four cats who lived with him in the White House.
 
24. A cat’s purr is known to vibrate at a frequency of 25 to 150 hertz, which is similar to muscles and bones that repair on their own.
 
25. A group of kittens is called as a Kindle.
 
26. Cat breeders are also known as Catteries.
 
27. Cats were first brought to America to get rid of rodents.
 
28. The nose print of each cat is unique just like human fingerprints.
 
29. White cats with blue eyes have more chances of becoming deaf.
 
30. Nearly half of the cat population in the world respond to the scent of catnip.
 
31. Cats have been the cause of extinction of 33 endemic species on islands throughout the world.
 
32. Cats look at humans as big cats without hair.
 
33. Studies tell us that domesticated cats first appeared in 3600 B.C.
 
34. Collective nouns for adult cats are called pounce, clutter, clowder and glaring.
 
35. Cats spend 70 percent of the day sleeping.
 
36. The record for the longest cat is 48.5 inches.
 
37. Cats walk like giraffes and camels, by walking with their both right feet first, followed by their left feet, moving half of their body forward at once.
 
38. Cats can sneak on their prey due to their thick and soft padded paws which make very little noise as they walk.
 
39. Cats have rough tongues which can lick a bone clean of any meat on it.
 
40. Cats use their long tails to balance when they walk or jump along narrow ledges.
 
41. Cats are supposed to have five toes on each front paw but only four on the back ones. The cat with the most toes known had 32 toes, eight on each paw.
 
42. Some cats are known to be ambidextrous, but close to 40 percent of them are either left or right pawed.
 
43. Cats find slow moving items to be stagnant, but they can easily notice the speedy movements of their prey.
 
44. Cats are very particular about their litter. If you have more than one cat, you need to keep one litter box for each.
 
45. As a sign of mourning, ancient Egyptians were known to shave off their eyebrows when their cats died.
 
46. Cats will refuse food to the point of starvation, if it is not up to their taste.
 
47. Cats cannot see directly under their nose because they have a blind spot right under their chin.
 
48. House cats share 95.6 percent of their genetics with tigers, also sharing similar behaviour like prey stalking and pouncing, as well as scent and urine marking.
 
49. Cats can rotate their ears 180 degrees.
 
50. A cat named Felicette, also known as Astrocat was the first and only cat to go to space on 18th Oct 1963.
 
Since these cat facts are out of the bag, and you can impress your friends and family with them, here’s one last humorous belief about cats – if you dream of a white cat, good luck is bound to follow!