Career Guidance for Children who want to work with Animals
As a mammal, cats are animals covered in fur, has a backbone and a four-chamber heart.
Domestication started in either Egypt or Asia. In comparison to dogs, cats have not undergone major changes during the domestication process, as the form and behavior of the domestic cat is not radically different from those of wildcats and domestic cats are perfectly capable of surviving in the wild. For this reason the cat should actually be deemed as semi-domesticated.
Although cats come in different sizes, their bodies are built for hunting. Their bodies are slender and muscular with 517 muscles. Thirty-two of those are in the ear alone!
Cats have 290 bones in their bodies, of which 10% is in the tail. But a cat has no collarbone, so that it can fit through spaces wide enough to fit it’s head through. Their backs (spines) are extremely flexible with up to 53 loosely fitting vertebrae. Humans only have 34.
A cat’s brain is biologically more similar to a human brain than it is to a dog’s. Both humans and cats have similar regions in their brains that are responsible for emotions.
Cats also don’t have sweat glands over their bodies like humans do. Instead, they sweat only through their paws. However, they do have several scent glands located at various places on their bodies. Those between the cats eyes and ears are used to mark the things they adore and are deemed safe, such as humans and other cats. The scent glands located on the mouth, lips and under the chin are used to mark inanimate objects.
Most cats have four types of hair:
Many variations exist among breeds as to the exact length, color, and texture of their coats. Their coats do stay waterproof through the secretion of oil from the base of their hair.
Body temperature:
38.6 °C (101.5 °F)
Heart Rate:
120 to 140 beats per minute
Breathing Rate:
16 to 40 breaths per minute
A cat’s tail helps it to balance and communicate its mood:​acts as a counterweight in helping him keep his balance while walking along a narrow space or making sudden turns. But besides working as a rudder, a cat’s tail communicates his mood and messages
Average Tail Length:
30 cm (11 in)​
A cat’s jaw can’t move sideways, so a cat can’t chew large chunks of food. A kitten gets its 26 deciduous teeth (like our milk teeth) between 3 to 4 weeks. When they fall out they are replaced by 30 permanent teeth which appear when the cat is between 3 to 4 months old.
Cats’ whiskers are like Antennae that help the cat to fit into tight spaces. The whiskers is the same width as the cat’s body, to help measure the space. Whiskers also help cats move around in the dark, to find their way.
Nobody really knows how a cat purrs. A cat purrs when it is happy, wants attention, or in some cases when it is stressed.
Taste Buds:
A cat has 473 (humans have 9,000)
Most cats have pointy ears, but there are breeds where the ears fold either back or forward. The outer part of their ears (the part we can see) is called the pinna and is shaped in a way to allow for better hearing. Cats can also rotate their ears 180 degrees to help determine where a sound is coming from. A cat has 32 muscles in its ears (humans have 6), which allows it to hear a lot more (5 times more than humans). Kittens are born with their ear canals closed, and they only open after about a week.
A cat’s sense of smell is believed to be about fourteen times stronger than that of humans. The rhinarium (the leathery part of the nose we see) is quite tough and has a unique pattern of bumps and ridges, just like human fingerprints.
Cats make a half-open-mouthed grimace known as the flehmen response when they detect certain strong smells.
A cat’s pupils (the black center) is larger than those of humans. The pupil acts almost like a shutter, controlling how much light can go into the eye. This is called the tapetum lucidum. When it’s dark, the shutter allows more light to enter so that the cat can see better at night. A cat only needs 1/6 of the light than humans need to see in the dark.
Besides the two normal eyelids, cats also have a third eyelid called the nictitating membrane which helps in protecting their eyes.
This is the first of a whole series of courses about the anatomy of cats. Complete the other courses to expand your knowledge and climb the leaderboard!
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