Cat Owner's Manual › Introduction › 

A Cat's Senses

All cats possess a highly developed suite of environmental sensors. This allows them to perceive the world differently (often more effectively) than humans.

Visual Sensors: The cat's vision system is optimized for conditions with minimum lighting. Key hardware modifications include a reflective tissue layer at the back of each eye that increases the amount of light passing through the retinas. This causes feline eyes to "glow" at night. Cats have a wider field of vision than humans (285 degrees versus 210 degrees), but their ability to discern fine detail is only 10 percent that of ours. However, they are exceedingly good at locating, ranging, and attacking moving objects. Contrary to earlier beliefs, cats are not color-blind.

expert tipEXPERT TIP: Cats cannot see in total darkness. In no-light conditions they are just as blind as humans.

Olfactory Sensors: Felines carry about 19 million scent-receptive nerve endings in their noses, compared to approximately 5 million in humans. They are particularly attuned to nitrogen compounds. Since these compounds are almost always present in food that has begun to rot, the cat's ability to detect them helps it determine if a potential meal is palatable.

Auditory Sensors: Felines can pick up extremely high-frequency tones—about two octaves higher than those that humans can hear, and half an octave higher than those that dogs can hear. They can triangulate on the location of an individual sound by comparing the minute differences in its tone and arrival time at their two ears. An organ in the inner ear called the vestibular apparatus senses a cat's position in space and allows it to usually land on its feet when dropped.

Tactile Sensors: Each hair in a cat's coat is connected to a "mechano-receptor" nerve that sends environmental information to the brain. Although their stereotypical reputation as "loners" would seem to imply otherwise, most cats enjoy being touched. Petting can cause, among other things, a drop in the cat's heart rate and a dramatic decrease in muscle tension. Ironically, it can cause almost the same response in the human doing the petting. (See Advantages of Cat Ownership.)

Taste Sensors: While humans possess some 9,000 taste buds, cats are equipped with less than 500. As with humans, cats respond to four broad categories of flavor: sweet, salty, sour, and bitter. Sweet makes the least impression. Because they have difficulty discerning tastes, feline culinary selections are based mostly on odors. This is why foods that smell particularly foul (to humans) can attract them so strongly.

Navigational Sensors: Many scientists assert that cats can sense the earth's gravitational field and use it to find their way, without visual cues, from one distant location to another. This feature may explain the numerous true stories of misplaced cats who travel hundreds of miles over unfamiliar territory to return to their homes.

Additional Sensors: A receptor called the Jacobson's organ, which is linked to the roof of the mouth by a duct, detects chemical sexual signals from other felines. Some cats make a lip-curling, snarl-like face in order to bring scents into contact with this sensor.

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Introduction

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We've noticed that my kitty can see infrared light, which we can not.

purred by henshu on Apr 10, 2008 AT 11:02 am PDT
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Quirk BooksThe Cat Owner's Manual is a basic guide to cat care.
The book was written by a celebrated veterinarian and an acclaimed author. It provides cat owners with well-researched and helpful information presented in a lighthearted manner. The creators chose to write the book in a style similar to what you'd find in "operating instructions" for a car or computer. Of course they--and we--respect the fact that our beloved pets are not products or machines!