Cat senses

Source: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

The large ears, eyes, and many vibrissae of the cat adapt it for lowlight predation

Cat senses are adaptations that allow

predators
. Cats are good at detecting movement in low light, have an acute sense of hearing and smell, and their sense of touch is enhanced by long whiskers that protrude from their heads and bodies. These senses evolved to allow cats to hunt effectively at dawn and dusk.

(video) A cat blinking and looking around.

Sight

The tapetum lucidum reflecting green in the pupils of a cat
Cat eyes stand out

Cats have a tapetum lucidum, which is a reflective layer behind the retina that sends light that passes through the retina back into the eye.[1] They also have a high number of rods in their retina that are sensitive to dim light.[2] While these improve the ability to see in darkness and enable cats to see using roughly one-sixth the amount of light that humans need, they appear to reduce net visual acuity, thus detracting when light is abundant. A cat's visual acuity is anywhere from 20/100 to 20/200, which means a cat has to be at 6 metres to see what an average human can see at 20 or 30 metres. Cats seem to be nearsighted, which means they cannot see far objects as well. The ability to see close objects would be well-suited for hunting and capturing prey.[2] In very bright light, the slit-like pupil closes very narrowly over the eye, reducing the amount of light on the sensitive retina, and improving depth of field. Big cats have pupils that contract to a round point. Variation in color of cats' eyes in flash photographs is largely due to the reflection of the flash by the tapetum.

A closeup of a cat's eye

Cats have a visual

fovea, which gives humans sharp central vision, cats have a central band known as the visual streak.[3]

Common for

lenses transmit significant amounts of ultraviolet (UVA 315–400 nm) light, which suggests that they possess sensitivity to this part of the spectrum.[6][7]

Cats have a third eyelid, the nictitating membrane, which is a thin cover that quickly closes from the side when the cat blinks and is hidden when the cat's eyelid opens.[8] This third eyelid extends upward to protect the eye from trauma, like when moving through tall grass or capturing a prey.[8] This membrane partially closes if the cat is sick, although in a sleepy state this membrane is often visible.[9][10]

Cats often sleep during the day and some periods of the night so they can hunt at dusk and dawn. Unlike humans, cats do not need to fully blink their eyes on a regular basis to keep their eyes lubricated (with tears).[8]

Hearing

Cats have one of the broadest ranges of hearing among mammals.[11] Humans and cats have a similar range of hearing on the low end of the scale, but cats can hear much higher-pitched sounds, up to 64 kHz, which is 1.6 octaves above the range of a human, and 1 octave above the range of a dog.[12]

When listening for something, a cat's ears will swivel in that direction; a cat's ear flaps (

pinnae) can independently point backwards as well as forwards and sideways to pinpoint the source of the sound. Cats can judge within 8 centimetres (3 inches) the location of a sound being made 1 metre (1 yard) away[13]
—this can be useful for locating their prey.

It is a common misconception that all white cats with blue eyes are deaf.[14] This is not true, as there are many blue-eyed cats with perfect hearing. However, white cats with blue eyes do have slightly higher probability of genetic deafness than white cats of other eye colors.[15] White cats having one blue and one other-colored eye are called "odd-eyed" and may be deaf on the same side as the blue eye.[16] This is the result of the yellow iris pigmentation rising to the surface of only one eye, as blue eyes are normal at birth before the adult pigmentation has had a chance to express itself in the eye(s).

Smell

A domestic cat's sense of smell is 9-16 times as strong as humans'.

olfactory receptor neurons", or "ORNs").[19][20][21] Cats also have a scent organ in the roof of their mouths called the vomeronasal (or Jacobson's) organ. When a cat wrinkles its muzzle, lowers its chin, and lets its tongue hang a bit, it is opening the passage to the vomeronasal. This is called gaping. It is equivalent to the Flehmen response in other animals, such as dogs, horses and big cats
.

Touch

Whiskers on the face of a tuxedo kitten.

A cat has about twenty-four movable

Sphynx (a nearly hairless breed) may have full length, short, or no whiskers at all.[23]

The structure of the brain region (barrel cortex) which receives information from the vibrissae is similar to that found in the visual cortex which permits the cat to create a three-dimensional map of its surroundings. This does not mean that sensing with vibrissae is a type of vision. It is still a touch sensation and environmental information is built up incrementally (in small steps).[24][25][26][27]

Vibrissae aid sensation and navigation. The upper two rows of whiskers are able to be moved independently from the lower two rows for greater precision during measurement. A cat's whiskers are more than twice as thick as ordinary cat hairs, and their roots are three times deeper in a cat's tissue than other hairs. They have numerous nerve endings at their base, which give cats extraordinarily detailed information about nearby air movements and objects with which they make physical contact. They enable a cat to know that it is near obstacles without it needing to see them.

Whiskers also aid in hunting.

High speed photography reveals that when a cat is unable to see its prey because it is too close to its mouth, its whiskers move so as to form a basket shape around its muzzle in order to precisely detect the prey's location.[28][29][failed verification
] A cat whose whiskers have been damaged may bite the wrong part of its prey, indicating that they provide cats with detailed information about the shape and activity of its prey.

Taste

The

evolutionary tree branched out. Some scientists now believe this is the root of the cat family's extremely specialized evolutionary niche
as a hunter and carnivore. Their modified sense of taste would cause them to some degree to ignore plants, a large part of whose taste appeal derives from their high sugar content, in favor of a high-protein carnivorous diet, which would still stimulate their remaining taste receptors.

References

  1. .
  2. ^ a b c "How Cats See The World Compared To Humans [PICTURES]". Business Insider. Retrieved 27 August 2018.
  3. S2CID 20734338
    .
  4. .
  5. .
  6. ^ Lewis, Tanya (18 February 2014). "Cats and Dogs May See in Ultraviolet". LiveScience.com.
  7. PMID 24552839
    .
  8. ^ a b c "Do Cats Blink?". www.petmd.com. Retrieved 2 August 2023.
  9. ^ "Why do cats have an inner eyelid as well as outer ones?". Scientific American. Retrieved 2 August 2023.
  10. ^ https://forestvets.co.uk/wp-content/plugins/vetstream_swagger/pet-health/pet/pet_info_print.php?vetstream-type=ZmVsaXM=&nodeguid=b15ee007-b544-493f-9d6d-523270779780[bare URL]
  11. S2CID 4763009
    .
  12. ^ "Frequency Hearing Ranges in Dogs and Other Species". www.lsu.edu.
  13. ^ "Cat Ears & Hearing". Animal Planet. 15 May 2012. Retrieved 20 June 2018.
  14. .
  15. .
  16. ^ Hartwell, Sarah. "White Cats, Eye Colours and Deafness". Retrieved 5 September 2006.
  17. ^ "The Nose Knows". About.com. Archived from the original on 6 December 2010. Retrieved 29 November 2006.
  18. ^ "The Cat's Olfaction". cdn.citl.illinois.edu. Retrieved 26 December 2020.
  19. ^ "Why Cats Sniff Rear Ends | VCA Animal Hospital | VCA Animal Hospitals". Vca.
  20. ^ "The Amazing Sense of Smell - Cats International". catsinternational.org.
  21. ISBN 978-1-319-19077-4. Retrieved 17 February 2023.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link
    )
  22. ^ "Cat's Whiskers". Archived from the original on 25 January 2007. Retrieved 20 December 2006.
  23. ^ "Sphynx". Purina. Retrieved 31 December 2019.
  24. PMID 903802
    .
  25. .
  26. .
  27. .
  28. ^ Cat Traits Archived 27 September 2007 at the Wayback Machine Floridaconservation.org
  29. .
  30. ^ .
  31. .
  32. .