Monday, August 8 marks International Cat Day.
The little feline has clearly won the hearts of the French, since there are 14 million of them in the country, almost twice as many as dogs.
However, the cat remains a rather mysterious animal, on which knowledge continues to evolve.
Let's lift the veil on some surprising particularities of this purring companion.
There are right-handed or left-handed cats
True
Laterality, that is to say the fact of developing a predominance of the right or left side, whether for the limbs or the eyes, is also found in cats, which would be 50% right-handed, 40% left-handed and 10% ambidextrous.
Scientists went even further in their research and established that males are more often left-handed and females right-handed.
Left-handers, regardless of gender, would have more excessive reactions of fear, stress or aggressiveness, while ambidextrous people would be more sensitive.
What about yours?
It's quite easy to determine: just observe your cat to see which paw it uses preferentially to play, catch a cork or move its bowl.
Ginger cats are always male
Fake
The gene coding for the fawn (or red) coat color is carried by the X sex chromosome. In a male (whose sex chromosomes are XY), it suffices that only the X chromosome carries the "fawn" gene for cat is red.
In a female (XX), it is necessary that both X chromosomes carry the “tawny” gene.
It is therefore statistically less frequent.
It is estimated that 80% of ginger cats are male.
Read also“Because it was him, because it was me”: animals also have great stories of friendship
On the other hand, when there is red and black or diluted black
(the famous "tortoiseshell")
or red, black and white
(what is called a calico dress)
, you can be 99% sure it's a female without having to investigate further.
As for the white coat, it is due to an absence of pigmentation of the hair;
the cat will have blue, green, gold or odd eyes.
It is often said that white cats are deaf: a German study showed that this was the case for 20% of white cats, with a higher risk for those with blue eyes.
His gusset is synonymous with overweight
partly wrong
The gusset is the excess skin that cats have in the abdominal region, almost between the hind legs, and which gives the feeling of dangling from right to left when walking.
It is also called the primordial pocket.
It is a normal anatomical structure in cats, as in many big cats, more visible in certain breeds such as Egyptian Mau, Bengal or American Bobtail.
The gusset takes shape from the age of 6 months, in males and females, sterilized or not.
Read alsoBe careful, with the good weather, it's the season for skydiving cats
This anatomical feature is multifunctional.
It protects the abdominal organs of the cat, especially during fights when the felines plow their bellies.
It would offer the cat additional leeway in its movements (jumping, running and contorting), hence the small name of "comfort fold".
Finally, this pocket could also be a place of fat storage in anticipation of times of scarcity.
This pocket is therefore normal in our house cats, provided that it is empty, flabby.
As soon as it fills with a fatty mass, the cat is overweight.
A bit like the belly at home!
It is a nyctalope animal
True
Nyctalopia is the ability to see in the dark, which cats have!
The back of his eye is covered with a membrane, the tapetum lucidum, which acts like a reflecting mirror.
It is this structure that sometimes makes your cat's pupil shine brightly in shades of green: you are actually seeing the back of his eye.
The advantage of this membrane is that the slightest light source is received once directly by the retina and a second time thanks to this phenomenon of reflection.
In addition, the cat has an exceptional ability to dilate the pupils, allowing it to capture as much light as possible in its environment.
Thanks to this, the cat sees 6 to 8 times better than us in the dark, and can thus hunt small prey that comes out at dusk.
However, in total darkness, a cat cannot see: