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Article By: AazdakAlisimo
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Understanding What Your Cat Senses
Cats are known for having enhanced senses or so it is believed. Fact and fiction often contradict when it comes to our feline friends, so let's take a closer look at what your cat actually senses compared to you, me and other humans.
Cats are oh so cute, but there is a definite dark side to your little fur ball. This dark side also explains how its senses have evolved over time. Simply put, your kitten is a predator. Its senses are all tailored to help it catch its prey.
As predators, cats are tuned to hunt during particular periods of time. With the average cat, the night is the time to stalk ones prey. To support this fact, cats have superior night vision compared to us, but have worse day vision.
To pull this increased vision off during the night, cats have an organic element of their eyes that reflects more light to the iris. This is known as the tapetum lucidum and you have seen it. It is the colored reflection you see in photographs of cats.
Ah, but what about hearing. Cats have absolutely tremendous hearing, right? Yes and no. They can hear much better than us when it comes to high pitches, but about the same as us on the lower pitches.
As we all know, a cat has a sense of smell that is simply amazing. Crack open a can of food for your kitten and they will be at your feet immediately. Compared to a human, their sense of smell is 14 time sharper and they have double the smell sensory cells.
What about the sense of touch? Well, cats have whiskers for a reason. Everyone has seen those on the face, but your cat actually also has them under the chin, on the back of each ankle and on the inner wrist area.
The odd thing about a cat's whiskers is the input they provide. A cat's brain will actually process the sense the same way as it will vision. As a result, scientists belive that cats more or less "see" with their whiskers.
Turning to taste, we find something very odd about cats. They have problems tasting sugars for genetic reasons. Scientists believe this is why most cat breeds ignore potential plant food and prefer meat that they can taste.
So, there you have it. Yes, your cat definitely has enhanced sense, but in different ways than you might have imagined. Knowing the specifics, however, gives you a better ability to interpret what they are doing day in and day out.
Article Source: ArticleZones.com
About the Author
Aazdak Alisimo provides cat information along with other pet info at PetStoreYeti.com. Get your own completely unique content version of this article.
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