134 Fun Facts About Cat

What is the primary function of a cat's whiskers, also known as vibrissae?

Sensing and navigation: a cat's whiskers are touch sensors rooted in nerve-rich follicles, and when prey is too close to see the whiskers swing forward to locate it by touch.

Besides contentment, in which of these situations have cats been recorded purring?

While ill or giving birth: cats often purr through labour and when chronically ill or in pain, so the sound is thought to soothe the cat itself as well as signal contentment.

The earliest known evidence of a tamed cat, from about 7500 BCE, was found on which island?

Cyprus: at Shillourokambos a cat was buried beside a human about 7500 BCE, thousands of years before Egypt's cat cult. Cats are not native to the island, so settlers must have brought them by boat.

When a cat rubs its cheeks against furniture or your legs, what is it mainly doing?

Depositing scent from facial glands: cheek rubbing leaves a pheromone on furniture and on favourite people alike, and rubbing against humans is thought to be a form of social bonding.

About how long is a cat pregnant before her kittens are born?

Two months: gestation averages about 65 days, short enough that a female cat can raise more than one litter in a single year.

A black cat with a white chest, paws and face markings is popularly known as what kind of cat?

Tuxedo cats look dressed for dinner, yet the outfit is no breed: it is a low grade of white spotting that turns up in pedigree cats and alley cats alike.

Which cat breed was developed by crossing Siamese and Burmese cats?

Tonkinese: the cross was older than anyone knew, because a cat imported decades before the breed had a name was later judged to be a Tonkinese herself.

In English folklore, which poor boy rose to be Lord Mayor of London thanks to his rat-catching cat?

Dick Whittington makes his fortune in the tale by selling his cat to a rat-plagued land; the real Richard Whittington was high-born, rich and probably never owned a cat.

What genetic factor is primarily responsible for tortoiseshell and calico coats in cats?

A gene on the X chromosome decides orange or black, so only a cat with two X chromosomes can wear both in patches; the rare tortoiseshell male usually carries an extra X and is sterile.

Cats see well in dim light, but which aspect of their eyesight is far weaker than a human's?

Sharpness of detail: the rod-packed retina that serves cats so well at dusk costs them resolution, so a cat must be within about six metres to make out what we see clearly from much farther off.

Rather than nocturnal, cats are most active at dawn and dusk, a pattern known as what?

Crepuscular: cats doze through 13 to 14 hours of the day and save their energy for the low light of dawn and dusk, the hours their eyes are built for.

Adult cats direct which vocalization almost entirely at humans rather than at other cats?

The meow is for us: adult cats rarely meow at each other, so it is thought to extend the mewing kittens aim at their mothers, and pets meow far more than ferals.

What is the fifth digit set high on a cat's front leg called?

Dewclaw: it sits where a thumb would and stays clear of the ground, which is why most cats have five toes on each front paw but only four behind, 18 in all.

What does a cat signal when it approaches with its tail held straight up?

A friendly greeting: a tail carried straight up shows a calm, confident cat coming over to say hello, whereas a tail tucked between the hind legs signals fear or submission.

Which dietary classification describes cats?

Obligate carnivore: cats can nibble grains and greens but must have meat, because they depend on nutrients found only in animal tissue, such as ready-made vitamin A, which they cannot build from plant pigments.

What is it called when a cat rhythmically pushes its paws into a soft surface, often while purring?

Kneading, or 'making biscuits', is thought to be a remnant of kittenhood, when kittens knead their mother to stimulate milk flow, and in adult cats it often signals contentment.

Which protein in cat saliva and skin is the primary allergen behind most human cat allergies?

Fel d 1 is made chiefly in the skin's sebaceous glands and also in saliva; males make more of it than females, but every cat produces some, so no cat is truly allergen-free.

What is the scientific name for the domestic cat?

Felis catus, as Linnaeus named it in 1758, has changed so little under domestication that it can still survive in the wild, and some experts call it not fully domesticated.

What is the innate reflex called that lets a falling cat twist in mid-air to land on its feet?

The righting reflex relies on the inner ear and a very flexible spine: the cat bends in the middle so its front half can swing round first and its hind half follow.

Which of these cat breeds is known for its distinctive 'smushed' or 'flat' face?

The Persian's flat face was exaggerated by selective breeding and brings breathing difficulties, so some breeders keep up the older, longer-nosed type as the Traditional Persian.

Cats are digitigrade, one reason they move so quietly; what does that mean they walk on?

Their toes: a cat's heel never touches down, so the long bones of the foot form what looks like the lower leg, and the padded toes land almost silently.

Roughly how many taste buds does a cat have, compared with more than 9,000 on a human tongue?

About 470 taste buds, against more than 9,000 on a human tongue, leave smell to do most of the work: a cat with a blocked nose may simply stop eating.

What common household plant is highly toxic to cats and can cause kidney failure?

Lily is the one to fear: even licking a few pollen grains off its fur, or drinking water from the vase, can bring on kidney failure, so vets treat any exposure as an emergency.

What is the collective term for a group of adult cats?

A clowder: the word is a variant of 'clodder', an old dialect term for a clotted mass, and the same gathering may also be called a clutter or a glaring.

Which of the five basic tastes can no cat, wild or domestic, detect at all?

Sweet is lost on cats: a shared mutation in a taste-receptor gene stops the receptor binding sugar, so they detect acids, bitterness and umami but never sugar.

What distinctive physical trait is characteristic of the Manx cat breed?

A stub or missing tail: the dominant gene behind it spread through the Isle of Man's small, isolated cat population, though an old tale blames Noah for shutting the Ark door on a latecomer.

Which internet-famous cat's real name was Tardar Sauce?

Grumpy Cat, whose real name was Tardar Sauce, became a worldwide internet sensation due to her distinctive underbite and feline dwarfism that gave her a permanently 'grumpy' facial expression.

What was unusual about Prune, the 1966 Toronto kitten who started the first Sphynx breeding programme?

Almost no fur at all: Prune was born hairless to an ordinary shorthair in 1966, yet most Sphynx today descend from other hairless kittens found in Minnesota and Toronto in the 1970s.

Why is a saucer of cow's milk a poor treat for most adult cats?

They are lactose intolerant: most cats lose the enzyme that digests milk sugar as they mature, so a saucer of milk is likelier to bring an upset stomach than a treat.

A cat delivers its killing bite with which teeth?

Canines: the long fangs stab between the prey's vertebrae and sever the spinal cord, while a cat's cheek teeth slice meat instead of chewing it.

Which routine operation is linked to a longer life in pet cats?

Neutering is linked to longer life in several studies, partly because a fixed cat cannot develop cancers of the organs removed and is far less likely to need treatment for bite wounds.

The grinning Cheshire Cat is a character in which classic novel?

The Cheshire Cat appears in Lewis Carroll's Alice's Adventures in Wonderland (1865), where it vanishes bit by bit until only its grin remains; the phrase 'grinning like a Cheshire cat' predates the book.

In bright light, a domestic cat's pupils narrow to what shape?

Vertical slits: the pupils close to slits in sunlight and swell to cover most of the eye in the dark, helping cats see in a sixth of the light we need, while big cats' pupils shrink to round points.

Which cat breed is known for ears that bend backward toward the skull?

Every American Curl descends from Shulamith, a black stray who turned up on a California doorstep in 1981 and had kittens with the same backswept ears.

Among free-roaming cats, one that leaves its droppings unburied in the open is most likely doing what?

Marking territory: cats normally bury their waste, but a dominant cat leaves its droppings uncovered where rivals will find the scent, much as it sprays urine.

Which of these large cats belongs to its own genus, Acinonyx, rather than to Panthera?

The cheetah is the only living member of Acinonyx: its claws never fully sheathe, so they wear blunt, and it purrs much like a house cat, only louder.

Cats are 'induced ovulators', which means a female releases her eggs only after what?

Mating itself triggers ovulation in cats; it often takes several matings, sometimes with more than one male, so kittens in a single litter can have different fathers.

The Abyssinian is known for a 'ticked' coat, which means what?

Hairs banded with several colors: each Abyssinian hair carries alternating light and dark bands, and the ticking gives the whole coat its glowing, 'wild' look.

What is a cat opening when it wrinkles its muzzle and lets its tongue hang after sniffing?

Its vomeronasal organ, also called Jacobson's organ, sits in the roof of the mouth and lets the cat 'taste' scents; the grimace is the feline version of the flehmen response horses and big cats make.

The Ragdoll breed takes its name from what habit?

Going limp when picked up: breeder Ann Baker said her foundation cat Josephine flopped like a rag doll when held, though the trait is not typical of most Ragdolls today.

What is the reflective layer behind a cat's retina that makes its eyes 'glow' called?

The tapetum lucidum bounces light back through the retina for a second pass, producing the eyeshine in photos and sharpening night vision in dim light.

Which ancient Egyptian deity was shown first as a lioness and later as a cat?

Bastet began as a fierce lioness, a daughter of the sun god, and took on the milder form of a cat as cats became household animals in Egypt.

A shortage of which nutrient, found in meat, causes dilated cardiomyopathy in cats?

Taurine: cats cannot make enough of this amino acid, and once a 1987 study showed the heart failure reversed when it was restored, cat-food makers added more and such cases became rare.

The curly-coated Selkirk Rex is said to be the only cat breed named after what?

A person: breeder Jeri Newman named it for her stepfather, Selkirk, after one curly kitten from a Montana litter passed her coat to half of her own kittens.

Which of these behaviors is a common sign that a cat is feeling threatened or aggressive?

Fur raised, back arched: a cornered cat bristles, arches and turns sideways to look bigger than it is, hissing or spitting with its ears turned down.

What is the genetic mutation giving cats extra toes, seen in the 'Hemingway cats', called?

Polydactyly gives cats extra toes on one or more paws; legend has it that the colony at Ernest Hemingway's Key West home descends from a six-toed cat a sea captain gave him.

What gives a cat's tongue its sandpaper feel?

Backward-facing keratin spines, the filiform papillae, rasp meat from bone and comb the coat like a hairbrush, which is how cats swallow the loose fur that comes back up as hairballs.

What affectionate nickname is commonly given to the Maine Coon?

The gentle giant: Maine Coons are among the largest pedigreed cats, yet so sociable and easygoing that they are often described as dog-like.

A Maine Coon named Stewie held which Guinness World Record from 2010?

Longest cat: Stewie stretched 48.5 inches (123 cm) from nose to tail-tip, and he was also a certified therapy cat who often visited a senior center near his Reno home.

One legend traces the Maine Coon to pet cats shipped to Maine for which ill-fated queen?

Marie Antoinette, in the tale, sent her favourite cats ahead on a ship bound for Maine and never followed; the breed's real roots lie with ship cats landed by New England's early settlers.

The Bengal breed was created by crossing domestic cats with which wild species?

Asian leopard cat: a conservationist first crossed one with a black domestic cat in 1963, and generations of careful breeding since have paired that wild look with a house cat's temperament.

The spots-within-spots markings on a Bengal's coat, also worn by jaguars, are called what?

Rosettes are spots with a dark outline round a paler centre; breeders drew them out of the Bengal's wild ancestry, giving it a coat that sets it apart from other spotted breeds.

In cat-fancy terms, a cat described as 'blue' has a coat of what colour?

Grey: 'blue' is what breeders call black fur thinned by the recessive dilute gene, the same gene that turns red to cream and chocolate to lilac.

Scottish Folds are often said to look like which bird?

An owl: the look goes back to Susie, a white barn cat found on a Scottish farm in 1961, whose folded ears and round face began the whole breed.

Why did Britain's GCCF cat registry stop registering Scottish Folds in the 1970s?

Fears for the breed's health: vets worried about ear trouble, and kittens bred from two folded-ear parents developed crippled limbs and tails, a cartilage disease now called osteochondrodysplasia.

The Siamese cat's colourpoint coat is caused by a temperature-sensitive form of what?

Albinism: the Siamese carries a temperature-sensitive tyrosinase mutation, a form of partial albinism, so pigment forms only on cooler extremities such as the ears, face, paws and tail while the warm body stays pale.

Which separate breed was created for the rounder 'old-style' Siamese from the 1980s onward?

Thai: breeders re-established the rounder, old-style cat under this name from the 1980s, while the slender, more extreme type bred in the West kept the Siamese name.

Who may have brought the Norwegian Forest Cat's ancestors to Norway around AD 1000?

The Vikings may have carried the Norwegian Forest Cat's ancestors on their voyages, most likely as ships' mousers; ashore the cats earned their keep catching rodents on Norwegian farms.

The Savannah breed comes from crossing a domestic cat with which African wild cat?

Serval: crossing this long-legged African wild cat with house cats in the 1980s produced a strikingly tall breed, and a Savannah has held the world record for tallest domestic cat.

What is the stuttering, clicking sound a cat makes while watching a bird it cannot reach?

Chattering is the sound of a hunter thwarted: cats click and chirp at prey they can see but cannot reach, a noise usually read as frustration or excitement.

The short-legged Munchkin breed takes its name from the little people of which story?

The Wizard of Oz gave the breed its name; its story began in 1983, when a Louisiana music teacher rescued a pregnant stray, Blackberry, some of whose kittens were born short-legged.

Which breed is widely said to have inspired the grinning Cheshire Cat?

British Shorthair: the set of its mouth gives it what its fans call a 'Cheshire cat smile', so the breed is often named as the likely model for the character.

Chartreux cats are said to appear to be doing what, thanks to their head shape and tapered muzzle?

Smiling: the Chartreux's rounded head and tapered muzzle give it a built-in smile, and the breed is so quiet that legend has these cats sharing a vow of silence with French monks.

Thanks to its huge ears and short, wide face, the Devon Rex is often likened to which creature of folklore?

A pixie: the look traces to Kirlee, a curly kitten born in Devon around 1960, whose coat proved to be a different mutation from the Cornish Rex's when the two were bred together.

Of the three types in a normal cat's coat, the Cornish Rex has only which one?

Down hair only: without the outer guard and awn layers the Cornish Rex wears just a fine, curly undercoat, so it chills easily and does best indoors in the warm.

With its lean, sleek build and galloping run, the Cornish Rex is often likened to which dog breed?

Greyhound: the 'Greyhound of the cat world' began with one curly kitten, Kallibunker, born on a Cornish farm around 1950 and bred back to his own mother to fix the wavy coat.

In the 'Van pattern' named after the Turkish Van, colour is restricted to which body parts?

Head and tail: the white spotting gene leaves the rest of the coat white, and the breed behind the name is nicknamed the swimming cat for its reputed love of water.

The Turkish Van reached England in 1955 with two British women working for Turkey's tourist board in what job?

Photographers: Laura Lushington and Sonia Halliday were on assignment for the Turkish tourist board when they were given two unrelated cats; back in England the pair's kittens came out just like them, so a breed was begun.

The 'Sacred Cat of Burma' is known for what distinctive white markings?

Gloves on each paw: the white must be symmetrical and runs up the back of the hind legs in 'laces', and show judges treat any other white spot on the dark points as a serious fault.

Which breed is described as the fastest domestic cat, clocked at over 48 km/h?

Egyptian Mau: it has been clocked at more than 48 km/h, helped by longer hind legs and a flap of skin from flank to knee that lets them stretch farther.

What eye feature did Ankara Zoo's Turkish Angora breeding programme particularly prize?

Odd-coloured eyes: Ankara's zoo bred pure white Angoras to save the breed from dying out and especially prized cats with one blue eye and one amber or green eye.

Which French novelist built the 1933 novel La Chatte around a Chartreux named Saha?

Colette's 1933 novel La Chatte centres on Saha, a blue-grey Chartreux whose bond with her owner Alain wrecks his marriage; Colette kept Chartreux cats herself.

The mi-ke, the Japanese Bobtail's luckiest coat, goes by which name in English?

Calico: mi-ke means tricolour, a white coat patched with black and red, and it is the coat most beckoning maneki-neko figurines are painted in.

Which breed is usually cited as the smallest recognised domestic cat?

Singapura: a grown female weighs only about 2 kg and a male about 3 kg, and Singapore made the little cat a tourism mascot under the name Kucinta, from the Malay words for cat and love.

Import papers later showed the 'drain cat' founders of the Kucinta, sold as a native Asian breed, had been shipped from where?

United States: import papers showed the Meadows had brought the three founding cats into Singapore from the US in 1974; the CFA looked into it in 1990 and let the breed keep its natural-breed status.

Félicette, the first cat launched into space in 1963, flew for which country's programme?

France: Félicette flew on a Véronique sounding rocket launched from Algeria on 18 October 1963 for the French space programme, with electrodes in her skull monitoring brain activity.

How did space cat Félicette's 1963 flight end?

Recovered alive: her capsule came down by parachute and she was retrieved safely, but a second cat launched six days later did not survive its flight.

'Unsinkable Sam' reputedly survived the 1941 sinkings of HMS Ark Royal and which German ship?

Bismarck: the story has Oscar plucked from floating wreckage after the battleship sank and then surviving HMS Cossack too, but no survivor account places him aboard and doubt has been cast on the tale.

Stubbs the cat served two decades as honorary mayor of Talkeetna, in which US state?

Alaska: Stubbs held the honorary title in Talkeetna from 1997 until his death in 2017, and each afternoon he drank catnip-laced water from a wine glass at a local restaurant.

Larry, Chief Mouser at 10 Downing Street from 2011, came from which animal charity?

Battersea Dogs & Cats Home: Larry was born a stray and was recruited from the shelter in February 2011 on the strength of his mousing skills, with Downing Street calling him a 'good ratter'.

Creme Puff of Austin, Texas, holds which Guinness World Record for a cat?

Oldest ever: Creme Puff lived 38 years and 3 days, and her owner Jake Perry had also raised Grandpa Rex Allen, the cat who held the record before her.

Tama the cat took what job on a struggling Japanese railway in 2007?

Station master: Tama greeted passengers at Kishi Station in a station master's hat, and when she died in 2015 her deputy, a cat named Nitama, took over the post.

Which terpene in catnip drives the rolling, rubbing reaction that many cats show?

Nepetalactone: it works as a natural mosquito repellent, yet in cats that inherit the sensitivity it sets off rolling and rubbing; young kittens do not react at all.

Before the craze reached Japan, the world's first cat café opened in 1998 in which Asian city?

Taipei: Cat Flower Garden opened there in 1998 and became a tourist favourite, but the idea truly took off once it reached Japan, where Tokyo's Neko no Mise opened in 2005.

The Kattenstoet cat parade in Ypres, Belgium recalls a reputed medieval custom of doing what?

Throwing cats from the belfry: live cats are said to have been hurled from the Cloth Hall tower in the Middle Ages, and today the city jester throws down plush toy cats to the crowd instead.

A maneki-neko with its left paw raised is most often said to beckon what?

More customers: the raised left paw is said to invite customers and the right to invite money, which is why the figures sit at the doors of shops, bars and restaurants.

What does a traditional maneki-neko hold besides raising a paw?

A koban coin: an oval gold coin of Edo-period Japan, and the one on the figurine is usually marked 'sen man ryo', ten million gold pieces, as a wish for great wealth.

Which navy banned cats from its ships in 1975?

Royal Navy: the 1975 ban took cats and other pets off its ships, though for centuries crews had relied on them as rat-catchers, mascots and company far from home.

Simon of HMS Amethyst is the only cat ever to win which award?

Dickin Medal: wounded by shell blast when HMS Amethyst came under fire on the Yangtze in 1949, Simon went on killing the rats that threatened the stranded crew's food supplies.

Trim, a ship's cat born at sea in 1799, belonged to which navigator?

Matthew Flinders: Trim sailed around Australia with him and shared his captivity on Mauritius, where Flinders wrote a tribute calling the cat 'the best and most illustrious of his race'.

What became of Mrs Chippy, the ship's cat on Shackleton's Endurance, in 1915?

Shot after the ship was lost: once the ice crushed Endurance, Shackleton had the cat and the youngest pups shot; carpenter Harry McNish never forgave him, and a bronze Mrs Chippy now lies on McNish's grave in Wellington.

The musical Cats is based on a 1939 poetry collection by which writer?

Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats was written for Eliot's godchildren.

Garfield was 'born' in the kitchen of what kind of business?

An Italian restaurant: the newborn Garfield ate so much pasta at Mamma Leoni's that the fed-up owner sent him to a pet shop, where Jon Arbuckle adopted him.

Jim Davis named Garfield after James A. Garfield Davis, 'a large cantankerous man' who was which relative?

Grandfather: the cat is named for Davis's grandfather, James A. Garfield Davis, and not directly for the 20th US president whose name the old man carried.

From 1928, RCA engineers tuned their experimental television cameras on a revolving doll of which cartoon cat?

Felix the Cat: a Felix doll turning on a phonograph turntable sat before RCA's experimental cameras for hours at a time while engineers adjusted the picture.

What was the first Hello Kitty product, released in 1975?

A vinyl coin purse: it went on sale in Japan in March 1975 and read simply 'Hello!'; the white kitten pictured on it did not yet have a name.

Jasper the cat starred in the 1940 debut of which cartoon duo?

Tom and Jerry: in Puss Gets the Boot the cat was Jasper and the mouse had no name, and the pair were renamed after a studio contest with a 50-dollar prize.

Sylvester holds which Looney Tunes record, ahead of Bugs Bunny?

Most Oscar wins: Tweetie Pie, Speedy Gonzales and Birds Anonymous all won Academy Awards, while Bugs Bunny's cartoons managed only one, Knighty Knight Bugs.

Schrödinger devised his cat thought experiment in 1935 during a discussion with whom?

Albert Einstein: Schrödinger framed the cat paradox in 1935 in correspondence with Einstein following the EPR paper, to highlight what he saw as the absurdity of applying the Copenhagen view to everyday objects.

In most British folklore, a black cat crossing your path is taken as a sign of what?

Good luck: in the UK meeting a black cat, especially one that crosses your path, is lucky, the reverse of the American belief, and in Scotland a stray black cat on the doorstep means prosperity.

Herodotus reported that when a pet cat died, everyone in an Egyptian household mourned by shaving off what?

Their eyebrows: Herodotus wrote that the people of a house where a cat died naturally shaved their eyebrows and no more, while a dog's death called for shaving the head and the whole body.

Most cat mummies excavated at Giza in Egypt belong to which species?

African wildcat: it is the commonest cat among the mummies excavated at Giza, followed by the jungle cat, and it is the wild ancestor of every house cat.

A cat's purr rumbles at a fundamental frequency of roughly what?

25 Hz: the purr is a low buzz of about 25 Hz that, unlike most animal calls, carries on without a break through both breathing in and breathing out.

Which big cat belongs to the lion's genus yet cannot roar, and purrs and chuffs instead?

Snow leopard: its vocal folds are too short to resist the airflow a roar needs, so it mews, chuffs and purrs; long placed in a genus of its own, Uncia, it now sits in Panthera with the roarers.

Roughly how many neurons does a cat's cerebral cortex contain?

250 million: a 2017 count found the cat's cortex holds about as many neurons as a brown bear's, which is ten times larger, while a human cortex holds around 16 billion.

According to a popular story, Muhammad cut off his sleeve rather than wake a cat named what?

Muezza: the tale has Muhammad cutting away the sleeve his cat slept on rather than wake her for prayer, but no hadith records any such cat, and scholars asked about it find no early record of her.

Socks, the White House cat of the 1990s, was adopted as a stray in Arkansas by which member of the first family?

Chelsea Clinton: she took in the stray while her father was governor of Arkansas, and after the White House years Socks lived with Bill Clinton's secretary, Betty Currie, until his death in 2009.

The 1871 show that launched the modern cat fancy was held at which London venue?

Crystal Palace: the July 1871 show there, usually credited to Harrison Weir, put cat shows on the map, though one is said to have been held at a Winchester fair as far back as 1598.

The Lykoi, a patchy-coated breed that emerged in America around 2011, is nicknamed after which monster?

Werewolf: the sparse roan coat and bare mask around the eyes give the Lykoi a wolfish look, and the breed's name comes from the Greek word for wolf.

Karl Lagerfeld's famous cat Choupette belongs to which breed?

Birman: Choupette came to Lagerfeld in 2011 and became a model in her own right, inspiring a 2014 Shu Uemura make-up collection named 'Shupette' after her.

The Nyan Cat meme shows a cat with what for a torso?

A Pop-Tart: Christopher Torres drew it in 2011 after two viewers of his charity drawing livestream asked for a Pop-Tart and a cat; the rainbow is only the trail it leaves behind.

What was the name of the cat in the original 1984 Keyboard Cat video?

Fatso: owner Charlie Schmidt filmed his cat Fatso in 1984, working the paws off-camera; the clip went viral in 2009 as the 'Play Him Off, Keyboard Cat' meme.

Maru, a Japanese cat who became one of YouTube's most-watched animals, was famous for squeezing himself into what?

Cardboard boxes: a 2008 video of Maru trying to squeeze into a box went viral, and Guinness later recognised him as the most-watched individual animal on YouTube.

Whose chariot in Norse myth is drawn by two cats?

Freyja: the Prose Edda describes the goddess riding a chariot drawn by two cats, while Thor's chariot is pulled by the goats Tanngrisnir and Tanngnjóstr.

What is a neutered male cat traditionally called?

A gib: the word is a medieval short form of the name Gilbert, used first for any tomcat and later for a castrated one in particular.

Which part of a cat's spine has as many vertebrae as a human's?

Neck: cats, like humans and almost all mammals, have seven neck vertebrae, but they carry 13 in the chest and 7 in the lower back to a human's 12 and 5, which gives the spine its extra flex.

What feature of a cat's shoulder lets it squeeze through any gap its head fits through?

Free-floating clavicles: a cat's collarbones are not fixed to the shoulder joint as ours are, so the shoulders can slip through any gap wide enough for the head.

An average cat falling with its limbs spread reaches a terminal velocity of roughly what?

60 mph: with limbs spread a falling cat tops out at about 60 mph, roughly half the terminal velocity of an average-sized man, one reason cats so often survive long falls.

A kitten's eyes are which colour when they first open, before the adult shade develops?

Blue: the cells that make eye pigment are barely active in a kitten's first weeks, so newly opened eyes look blue, and the adult colour may not settle until around two months.

The cat family are the only known definitive hosts of which parasite?

Toxoplasma gondii: cats are the only animals in which the parasite reproduces sexually and sheds oocysts; infected rodents lose their aversion to cat urine, which may help the parasite complete its cycle.

Catwoman first appeared, as a jewel thief called 'the Cat', in which 1940 comic?

Batman #1 in spring 1940 introduced her as 'the Cat'; Bill Finger and Bob Kane created her, and the same issue debuted the Joker.

In Perrault's Puss in Boots, what noble title does the cat invent for his master?

Marquis of Carabas: the cat passes off his penniless master, a miller's youngest son, under that title to win the king's favour; Straparola had told an Italian version more than a century before Perrault.

In Dr. Seuss's The Cat in the Hat, which character objects repeatedly to the Cat's tricks?

The family fish is the voice of conscience, protesting every trick while the mother is out; two publishers split the 1957 book, Houghton Mifflin for schools, Random House for shops.

Ann Baker, creator of the Ragdoll, took what step to keep control of the breed?

Trademarked its name: Baker shunned the established cat registries, trademarked 'Ragdoll' and ran her own registry, so breeders had to follow her rules until a group broke away in the mid-1970s.

The Bombay cat, named after the Indian city, was bred to look like a miniature version of which animal?

Black leopard: Kentucky breeder Nikki Horner crossed Burmese with black American Shorthairs to make a 'parlour panther', and named it for Bombay, where India's black leopards live.

The Korat, Thailand's 'good luck cat', is known for a head of what shape?

Heart-shaped: brow ridges, strong cheekbones and a tapered muzzle draw the heart, and in Thailand a Korat was the traditional gift to a bride to bring a lucky, happy marriage.

The Somali cat is essentially a long-haired version of which breed?

Abyssinian: long-haired kittens kept turning up in Abyssinian litters, and the new breed was named for Somalia because it borders Ethiopia, the old Abyssinia.

An Iowa kitten who inspired a 2008 bestseller was found abandoned in what?

A library book drop: the half-frozen kitten was found in the returns slot of Spencer's public library one winter morning, named Dewey Readmore Books, and lived in the library until 2006.

Oscar, the nursing-home therapy cat, drew fame in 2007 for seemingly predicting what?

Patients' deaths: geriatrician David Dosa wrote in the New England Journal of Medicine that Oscar curled up beside residents in their final hours, and after 25 cases staff began calling families when he chose someone.

Room 8, a stray who became a Los Angeles celebrity from 1952, got his name by moving into what kind of place?

An elementary school: he wandered into Elysian Heights Elementary in 1952, was named for the classroom where pupils found him, vanished each summer and came back every autumn when they did.

On Japan's Tashirojima, nicknamed 'Cat Island', which pets are banned?

Dogs: pet dogs are kept off Tashirojima, where islanders believe that feeding the cats brings wealth and good fortune and the cats now far outnumber the people.

In Japanese folklore, what distinguishes the nekomata from the bakeneko?

It has two tails: an old cat is said to become a nekomata when its tail splits in two, while a bakeneko keeps one; both are supernatural cats of Japanese folklore, the nekomata the more malevolent.

Tombili, the reclining street cat immortalised with a statue, lived in which city?

Istanbul: after a photo of Tombili lounging against a kerb went viral, the city honoured him with a bronze of the pose in 2016; it was stolen within weeks and returned after a public outcry.

Which Disney film features the scheming Siamese cats Si and Am?

Lady and the Tramp (1955): the mischievous Siamese pair Si and Am perform 'The Siamese Cat Song', voiced by Peggy Lee, who co-wrote the film's songs with Sonny Burke.