101 Amusing Cat Facts: Fun Trivia About Your Feline Friend

Did you know that cats have held elective office, inherited fortunes and become social media super stars?

Here are 101 amusing cat facts that you can share with your friends and family:
 

1. According to The Huffington Post, cats typically sleep for 12 to 16 hours a day.
2. When cats hit you with retracted claws, they’re playing, not attacking.
3. They are crepuscular, which means that they are most active at dawn and dusk.
4. As is the case with kids, if you keep your cat active during the day, he will sleep better at night.
5. If you’re not free-feeding, you can also help your cat get a good night’s sleep by providing her with a substantial evening meal.
   
6. Cats are fastidious creatures about their “bathroom.” If you have more than one cat, you should have one litter box for each.
7. Cats learn to manipulate humans with their meows — some even develop a cry like a baby!
8. Meowing is a behavior that cats developed exclusively to communicate with people.
9. Cats mark you as their territory when they rub their faces and bodies against you, as they have scent glands in those areas.
10. Kneading — which some people refer to as “making biscuits” — is a sign of contentment and happiness. Cats knead their mothers when they are nursing to stimulate the let-down of milk.
    
11. Cats often attack your ankles when they are bored.
12. When dogs wag their tails, they may be expressing happiness. But this is not the case for cats! When your cat wags her tail, it’s her way of warning you that you are getting on her last nerve.
13. Cats live longer when they stay indoors.
14. Cats walk like camels and giraffes: They move both of their right feet first, then move both of their left feet. No other animals walk this way.
15. Cats make very little noise when they walk around. The thick, soft pads on their paws allow them to sneak up on their prey — or you!
16. Female cats have the ability to get pregnant when they are only 4 months old!
17. Some cat facts are, well, a little gross. For instance, these animals do not have an incest taboo, so they may choose to mate with their brothers and sisters.
18. Kittens can be spayed or neutered when they are only eight weeks old. If possible, these procedures should be performed in the first 5 months of your cat’s life.
19. Male cats who have been fixed need fewer calories to maintain their weight.
20. Cats were first brought to the Americas in colonial times to get rid of rodents.
21. It’s not uncommon to see cats in food stores in big cities as a form of free — and adorable — pest control.
22. A group of kittens is called a kindle.
    
23. Collective nouns for adult cats include clowder, clutter, glaring and pounce.
24. Cats are believed to be the only mammals who don’t taste sweetness.
25. A green cat was born in Denmark in 1995. Some people believe that high levels of copper in the water pipes nearby may have given his fur a verdigris effect.
26. Cats will refuse an unpalatable food to the point of starvation.
27. White cats with blue eyes are prone to deafness.
28. Some cats are ambidextrous, but 40 percent are either left- or right-pawed.
29. Male cats are more likely to be left-pawed, while female cats are more likely to be right-pawed.
30. Cats can spend up to a third of their waking hours grooming.
31. Your cat’s grooming process stimulates blood flow to his skin, regulates his body temperature and helps him relax.
32. Cats groom other cats — and sometimes people — in a ritual called allogrooming.
    
33. Cats may yawn as a way to end a confrontation with another animal. Think of it as their “talk to the hand” gesture.
34. Each cat’s nose print is unique, much like human fingerprints.
35. Cats dislike citrus scents.
36. Certain cats go crazy for foods you would not expect, like olives, potato chips and the hops in beer.
37. Some cats love the smell of chlorine.
38. Many cats like to lick their owner’s freshly washed hair.
39. Cats like to sleep on things that smell like their owners, like their pillows and dirty laundry (ick!).
40. Cats also love to sleep in laundry baskets, because they appear to be a hiding place with peep holes.
41. Cats use their whiskers to “feel” the world around them in an effort to determine which small spaces they can fit into. A cat’s whiskers are generally about the same width as its body.
42. Whiskers are also good indicators of a cat’s mood. When a cat is scared, he put his whiskers back. But when a cat is in hunting mode, he puts his whiskers forward.
43. Cats have whiskers on the backs of their front legs, as well.
44. Kittens in the same litter can have more than one father. This is because the female cat releases multiple eggs over the course of a few days when she is in heat.
45. Cats dream, just like people do.
    
46. Cats have the largest eyes relative to their head size of any mammal.
47. Cats’ rough tongues can lick a bone clean of any shred of meat.
48. Cats can be toilet-trained.
49. Cats have 230 bones, while humans only have 206.
50. Cats’ collarbones don’t connect to their other bones, as these bones are buried in their shoulder muscles.
51. A cat’s average lifespan increased by a year over the span of time between 2002 and 2012, according to a study by Banfield Pet Hospital.
52. Spaying and neutering can extend a cat’s life. The Banfield Pet Hospital study found that neutered males live an average of 62 percent longer than unneutered cats and spayed females live an average of 39 percent longer than unspayed cats.
53. Male cats who trying to get to a female in heat can show very bizarre behavior — they’ve even been known to slide down chimneys!
54. Cats can jump up to six times their length.
    
55. Cats use their long tails to balance themselves when they are jumping or walking along narrow ledges.
56. If your cat approaches you with a straight, almost vibrating tail, this means that she is extremely happy to see you.
57. A cat with a question-mark-shaped tail is asking, “Want to play?”
58. Your cat drapes its tail over another cat, your dog or you as a symbol of friendship.
59. Most world languages have a similar word to describe the “meow” sound.
60. Every Scottish Fold cat in the world can trace its heritage back to the first one, which was found in Scotland in the 1960s, says Cheryl Hogan, a Scottish Fold breeder and the committee chair for the breed at The International Cat Association (TICA).
61. Hissing is defensive, not aggressive, says Layla Morgan Wilde, a cat behavior expert and the founder of Cat Wisdom 101. “It’s an expression of fear, stress or discomfort of a threatened cat communicating ‘stay away,'” she says.
62. If cats are fighting, the cat that is hissing is the more vulnerable one, says Wilde.
    
63. When a cat flops over and exposes his belly, it’s not always an invitation for a belly rub. “This is probably the most common cause of people getting scratched by a cat,” Wilde says. A cat performs this action when he is relaxed and showing trust.
64. A housecat’s genome is 95.6 percent tiger, and they share many behaviors with their jungle ancestors, says Wilde. These behaviors include scent marking by scratching, prey play, prey stalking and pouncing, chinning and territorial scent and urine marking.
65. Cats have a unique “vocabulary” with their owner — each cat has a different set of vocalizations, purrs and behaviors.
    
66. If you can’t find your cat, you should look in a box or a bag, as these are some of their favorite hiding spots!
67. Cats are very fussy about their water bowls, and some prefer to ignore their bowls entirely in favor of drinking from the sink faucet.
68. Thieving behavior is not uncommon among cats. They will often grab objects like stuffed animals, feather dusters and other things that remind them of prey.
69. When your cat sticks his butt in your face, he is doing so as a gesture of friendship.
70. Cats perceive people as big, hairless cats, says Wilde.
71. Some 700 million feral cats live in the United States, and many shelters run trap-neuter-release programs to stem the population growth.
72. Cat breeders are called catteries.
73. Only about half of the cats in the world respond to the scent of catnip.
74. It’s believed that catnip produces an effect similar to LSD or marijuana in cats.
75. The effects of nepetalactone — the chemical in catnip that can makes cats crazy — wears off within 15 minutes, and won’t surface again for a few hours, even if your cat remains in sniffing distance.
76. Male cats are the most sensitive to catnip, while kittens under 3 months old have no response at all.
77. People often think that they’ve stumbled over a purebred as a stray or in a shelter, but Hogan says that this is very uncommon. “Ninety-nine times out of 100 what you have found on the street will not be purebred anything,” she says. “Very seldom do breeders sell kittens that are not already spayed or neutered,” as purebred cats need to meet very strict standards.
78. Cats can drink sea water in order to survive.
79. Some cats can swim.
80. Cats have contributed to the extinction of 33 different species.
81. Two hundred feral cats prowl the park at Disneyland, doing their part to control rodents — the ones who don’t wear funny outfits and speak in squeaky voices.
82. There are about 88 million pet cats in the United States, which makes them the most popular pet in the country!
83. Cats have an extra organ that allows them to taste scents on the air, which is why your cat stares at you with her mouth open from time to time.
    
84. Stubbs, a 17-year-old orange tabby, is mayor of the historic district of Talkeetna, Alaska.
85. President Bill Clinton’s cat, Socks, was a media darling during the Clinton administration and was said to receive more letters than the President himself.
86. Cat videos are so popular online that there is an annual film festival that features the best ones.
87. In August 2013, 11,000 people attended the Internet Cat Video Festival at the Minnesota State Fair.
88. “Surprised Kitty,” which is the most popular cat video in history, has been viewed more than 65 million times on YouTube.
89. The first Internet cat video, “Puppy Vs. Cat,” was initially uploaded in 2006.
90. A cat’s purr can be self-soothing, as these animals makes this noise when they are ill or distressed.
91. A cat’s purr vibrates at a frequency of 25 to 150 hertz, which is the same frequency at which muscles and bones repair themselves.
92. The first known cat video was recorded in 1894.
93. Maria Assunta left her cat, Tomasso, her entire $13 million fortune when she died in 2011.
94. Cats have nearly twice the amount of neurons in their cerebral cortex as dogs.
95. A cat’s learning style is about the same as a 2- to 3-year-old child.
96. There is an urban legend that Sir Isaac Newton invented the cat door, but in fact they were mentioned in literature centuries before he was born.
97. A house cat could beat superstar runner Usain Bolt in the 200 meter dash.
    
98. Cats are nearsighted, but their peripheral vision and night vision are much better than those of humans.
99. Though cats can notice the fast movements of their prey, it often seems to them that slow-moving objects are actually stagnant.
100. Cats have up to 100 different vocalizations.
101. According to Wilde, a slow blink is a “kitty kiss.” This movement shows contentment and trust.
      

Amy Kuras lives and writes in Detroit, often with her two cats at her side (or on her keyboard).